At Goring Church of England Primary School, we respect the children’s thoughts and ideas and value their contributions to our school and community. Pupil voice is important to us because we believe that involving children in decision-making and ambassadorial roles will generate an ambitious and aspirational atmosphere in which children will want to succeed and will develop key skills. These skills will be invaluable to them in later life when they go out into the world to love and to serve. Furthermore, various studies have confirmed the benefits of pupil voice. These include increased pupil engagement, improved relationships between pupils and teachers, better communication between pupils and the school, and providing the right conditions for the school community to become a learning community (Mitra, 2001; Rudduck et al., 2003). To ensure that we encourage and enable pupils to have a voice, children from each class are elected or nominated at the beginning of each academic year to represent their class on a number of different pupil leadership groups.
All pupil leadership groups meet regularly to work towards their agreed aims for the year.
Our School Council works hard to ensure that all children are happy, safe and involved in decisions about the school. Representatives from each class make sure that everybody has a chance to share their thoughts and ideas about how to make the school and our community a better place. The School Council also helps to organise and run events throughout the year, raising money for the school and different charities.
Anti-Bullying Ambassadors aim to help educate their peers on bullying, lead on anti-bullying campaigns, promote a culture that celebrates and tolerates difference and help keep their peers safe both online and offline. The Anti-Bullying Ambassadors have all completed training in order to ensure that they understand their roles and responsibilities and to help them fulfil their aims. They also help organise the annual Anti-Bullying Week and have the opportunity to lead collective worship throughout the year.
The Eco Warriors aim to engage children in environmental education and action. They use the Eco Schools simple seven-step framework to guide them to empower and motivate children to drive change and improve environmental awareness in our school, local community and beyond.
‘We hope to make school a cleaner, tidier and healthier place.’ Eco Warrior, Y5
The Healthy Schools committee aims to ensure that all children in our school and community grow healthily, safely and responsibly. The committee wants everyone to be as healthy as possible, and shares ideas with the whole school community on how to help make school and the local community a healthy place.
A Mental Health Ambassador is a child with an interest in their own health and well-being who wants to help peers in making healthy lifestyle choices that affect mental health. They act as an ambassador and mentor, providing important health information and advice, and help to effect real and lasting change in our school. Our Mental Health Ambassadors have developed their knowledge and understanding of key physical, social and mental health issues affecting them today through working with our Mental Health Champion, Mrs Mitchell. The Mental Health Ambassadors hold regular events throughout the school year to promote positive mental health, including ‘Hello Yellow’ day.
Each lunchtime, trained Play Leaders from Goldcrest Class organise a range of activities and games for younger children to play, such as Hot Potato, Duck, Duck, Goose and Scoop. The aim is to encourage the younger children to participate in different games with their peers and to ensure children stay active at lunchtime.
‘Being a Play Leader is great because we enjoy leading games and learn leadership and organisational skills. It is brilliant for the younger children too because they are entertained and learn skills for life, like problem-solving and social skills.’ Play Leader, Y6
The Worship Squad meets regularly to discuss various topics such as whole-school worship, prayer spaces and our school values. Some of its main responsibilities and achievements include:
- being involved in planning and delivering whole-school collective worship
- being consulted over whole-school values
- evaluating whole-school worship.