Voice Specialism

At Trinity Academy Leeds, we have a unique and powerful specialism that fuses together all elements of our practice and underpins our mission to close the disadvantage gap within our city.

Our specialism of Voice draws together and strengthens our curriculum, empowering our young people to have the confidence to grasp opportunities while living well-led lives.

Through our knowledge rich curriculum crafted by subject experts, our unrelenting focus on culture and climate, our ambitious and inclusive co-curricular offer, and our focus on the holistic development of young people, we enable them to make choices, to take their place in the world, to sit at the table, to compete and to be heard.

At Trinity Academy Leeds we believe that academic success is not enough. We believe that our young people need to be equipped with the confidence and self-belief to turn their achievements into reality, to grasp opportunity when it arises and to thrive in their chosen career. Furthermore, our carefully chosen specialism supports all TAL students in using their voice to affect personal and social change, in celebrating their identity and in being able to communicate with clarity and confidence.

Our specialism runs through everything that we do at TAL and every one of our staff team are teachers and champions of Voice, focusing on four key pillars.

Our Voice key pillars

Examples of our Voice Specialism in action:

Every student invested in their Build Team Mantra, giving Voice to their ambitions
A curriculum that champions the Arts and supports expression/Voice through performance
Free musical tuition and experiences that support the expression of Voice through art
A curriculum that is contextualised to ensure diversity of Voice and experience represented, including through the use of Habits of Discussion
Democratically elected Ambassadors from each Team represent the Voice and views of cohort, through weekly meetings with their Head of Year
Team Ambassadors also give a Voice to key issues through the workshops they devise and deliver to their peers
A Voice is given to the diverse cultures at TAL through the annual Fusion culture day
Fusion is coordinated by the Fusion panel, representing students from all year-groups. Students applied to be part of this panel
Culture 20 routines support effective Voice, communication, and pronunciation
A literacy strategy that supports the development of Voice through vocabulary acquisition
Building Stories models intonation, nuance, pronunciation, and prosody in Voice
Weekly Inspire assemblies giving a Voice to role models who embody our core values
A co-curriculum that specifically develops oracy skills and Voice
SHINE home learning and subsequent showcases celebrating identity, self, and Voice at Parents’ Evenings
Careers and future pathways/opportunities to develop Voice in industry and workplace through Empower
A Character Curriculum, ‘The Build’, which promotes Voice, core and British Values
Every student Voiceis supported through the Personal Development curriculum, enhanced by weekly Habits of Discussion in Team Time
Weekly Student Voice (Principal’s Breakfast and Building Learning Power) is used for academy improvement
Daily reflection and opportunity to Voice views on culture and politics through Habits of Discussion
Golden Questions embedded into schemes of learning encouraging the development of Voice.