Pupil Leadership

PUPIL LEADERSHIP

Vision for Pupil Leadership at Bursted Wood Primary School

At Bursted Wood, we recognise that our children are the leaders of the future and therefore provide a range of opportunities for children to develop their leadership skills. Pupil voice is valued and promoted and, within each academic year, pupils are given a platform to express the views of their school to help shape its development.

We encourage all our pupils to embrace the wide range of opportunities available to them and we always seek to find new ways that we can further empower our pupils. This enables our pupils to develop as individuals within the community and help to grow and shape our school.

Aims of our Pupil Leadership Groups

Why do we have Pupil Leadership? 

To promote pupil voice opportunities and enable children to develop valuable communication, organisation and debating skills through key roles, responsibilities and new experiences.  

How do we develop a Pupil Leader?  

Planning, organising and monitoring small projects. Developing mediation and negotiating skills. Debating skills, speaking and listening skills. Responsibility toward the community and our environment. A consensus over school issues such as behaviour. Basic budgeting and managing money.

Why have Pupil Leadership at BWPS?

This Pupil Leadership structure provides opportunities for all children from Year 1 to Year 6 to be actively involved in the way that Bursted Wood Primary School is run. Pupil Leadership benefitss all pupils, staff and parents and the wider community because it provides opportunities for pupils to voice their opinions as well as influence the decisions that are made on their behalf.  Pupils relish the opportunity to become a greater part of school life, enjoy making their voices heard and seeing the results of their decisions. 

The aims of the Pupil Leadership structure: 

• Represent all pupils
• Take time to listen to all pupils and communicate their views
• Feed back to pupils about what happened about their views 
• Action decisions that have been made or explain why they can’t happen 

How does Pupil Leadership Work at BWPS? 

Pupil Leadership is divided into four distinct groups which meet regularly with their team leader to discuss issues raised by themselves and their peers, and other important areas that they want to promote and improve.  

Each group runs meetings, with clear agendas, where members take on different roles as responsibilities. The Chair Person(s) sets the agenda and leads the meetings and the Secretary takes the minutes.  The membership work together on their chosen projects, share information in different ways with the wider school, and discuss challenges and resolutions with different members of staff.  This is to ensure that the views of the school are listened to, debated and acted upon so that pupils get the best outcome for every project. 

Pupils work together to evaluate the progress that has been made, the steps that need to be taken next and to prepare for plans going forward.  Pupil Leaders are held to account, not only by their peers, but through regular update to the Principal (which is thereafter reported to Trustees) and termly newsletters or website updates to the wider community. Pupil Leaders regularly speak to visitors to the school on behalf of our community.

Who can be a member of a Pupil Parliament group?  

Any pupil from Year 1 to Year 6 can stand for election for a position on the School Council. Each candidate can give a short speech or presentation explaining why they want the responsibility, and then a class election is held. For the other groups, any pupil from Year 1 to Year 6 can present their interest and aptitude to the staff group leader, who then applies a fair process for selection. 

The Impact of Effective Pupil Leadership

Why do we have Pupil Leadership?

• a safe, happy and fair learning environment
• a forum to voice concerns and have them acted upon
• a structured opportunity to learn problem-solving skills
• an opportunity to take an active role in the organisation of the school
• an opportunity to experience a democratic process

Pupil Leadership should develop:

• a sense of ownership over policy and practice
• a consensus over school issues such as behaviour
• a responsibility towards the school community and environment
• planning, organising and monitoring small projects
• speaking and listening skills
• debating skills
• mediation and negotiating skills
• basic budgeting and managing money