Alverstoke Church of EnglandPupil Leadership
Our Pupil Leadership Team
We believe the best schools have strong leadership at all levels, including a culture where children take on key leadership roles and have their voices heard. As part of our school motto, we encourage all pupils to ‘Be Ambitious’, believing that they can make a difference to the world around them. We teach them to stand up for what is right, not for what is easy and to be courageous to share their views even if they stand alone.
Through our P4C enquiries, all pupils are encouraged to think deeply about issues and learn how to listen to and share views respectfully. Through pupil leadership roles, we hope to empower confident and articulate leaders who understand the responsibility of leadership and who are ready to be leaders of the future both during their continued education and in the world of work.
The aim of the various teams within the Pupil Leadership Team is to give the children the opportunity to assist with school improvements along our journey. We actively encourage children to challenge, discuss and debate issues which are important to them. Opinions and ideas are gathered in many ways e.g. pupil voice surveys, learning walks and feedback received from their peers.
Head and Deputy Boys and Girls
We have a Head Boy and Head Girl and two deputies. Their main roles in school are to take a lead in school Collective Worship to promote our school Core Christian Values and to lead the House Captains and collate house points each week. They also meet with the Headteacher and Deputy Headteachers to share ideas for school improvement and show parents and visitors around the school. The children apply for this role, completing an application form during the Summer Term. They are then selected by the staff who read and consider all the application forms.
House Captains
We have eight House Captains - two for each of the four houses- and they are led by our Head Boy and Head Girl, supported by their deputies. These children have a very important role at school, helping to organise and support House activities. They meet with the PE Leader and school governors to help evaluate what we do well and what we need to improve, with a focus on sport. They also help to set up and supervise Collective Worship, leading their house and act as role models for the other children. Pupils apply for the role, completing an application form during the Summer Term. They are then selected by the staff who read and consider all the application forms. Here are our House Captains for our 4 Houses: Invincible, Phoenix, Victory and Warrior
Prefects
Prefects act as positive role models around school. They help to uphold our high standards of behaviour and promote our Core Christian Values throughout the school. Staff Members nominate pupils to be prefects based on their continued excellent behaviour and ability to be strong role models to others.
Young Governors
Each year, at Alverstoke Junior School we run an election campaign for two new Young Governors from each class. Each candidate writes and presents a speech to their peers, setting out their plans and ambitions as a Young Governor. After each child has presented, a pupil vote is cast and two children from each class are elected to take on the role. In total, we have 16 Young Governors across all our classes.
We believe that the children at our school should be given the opportunity to contribute towards the continuous improvement of our school. The Young Governors represent the views of all the pupils and consider ways to improve their school, enacting their understanding of human rights and responsibilities in practical and meaningful ways. Through the experience of being a Young Governor, we can increase participation, teaching young people about democracy, local and global citizenship, and accountability.
The Young Governors meet on a regular basis and take on a vast array of projects around the school, all with the intention of improving our school and our links with the local and wider community.
The role of a Young Governors involves:
- Listening to the views of their class and represent these ideas and views during meetings.
- Serving as the voice for all children at Alverstoke Junior School
- Engaging their peers in extracurricular learning (Fairtrade, UK Parliament Week etc.)
- Working with Senior Leadership and Governors to share their thoughts and ideas on matters which have a direct impact on the school community.
- Helping to strengthen links within the school community (parents, church etc.) and in the wider world.
- Liaising with outside groups or agencies as AJS representatives or to provide positive experiences for the school where appropriate.
- Making positive changes to our school and community through fund raising where appropriate.
Over the past year, the Young Governors have:
-Delivered a whole school assembly during UK Parliament Week, teaching the children about the democratic process in the United Kingdom.
-Liaised with their classes about Fairtrade and surveyed their peers about this.
-Worked with the kitchen staff to discuss future lunch menu options. They gathered ideas from their peers, collated them and relayed this information to the kitchen staff. They then participated in menu tasting and gave feedback to staff.
-Worked with Chase Africa to establish a relationship with a Kenyan School. They exchanged letters with Kenyan pupils and participated in various video calls, with the aim of developing their awareness of our global neighbours.
-Managed fund raising activities
-Worked with the Friends of Alverstoke Junior School to redesign the school Music Room.
Young Governor Code of Conduct
Subject Champions
At Alverstoke Junior School, we proactively seek opportunities to develop leadership roles amongst our pupils. In January of this year, we introduced ‘Subject Champions’.
Children were asked if there was a subject which they loved above all the others and if they thought ‘Yippee!’ or ‘Yay!’ when they saw a particular subject on their class’s timetable for that day. If they answered yes to either, or both, of these questions, then we were looking for them!
The role entails capturing the learning in our more practical sessions. So, for example, when Year 4 learn about the digestive system in Science, the science subject champion in the class will take photos of the children undertaking the investigation, print out the photographs and write a brief explanation of what the class has learnt. The subject champions will also meet with the adult subject leads, and they may meet visitors who want to hear about their year group’s work in their subject, for example, our school Governors.
Those children who were keen to be a subject champion had to write a brief supporting statement as to why they should be the subject champion – ensuring their love of the subject shone through. Below are a couple of examples.
Look no further for your computer champion. I am passionate about all kinds of technology. One of my favourite things to do is to code my Raspberry pie using Scratch and Java script. I also enjoy borrowing a mini robot called a BBC Micro Bit from the Gosport Discovery Centre.
When we moved house, I was in charge of setting up the internet, my dad’s monitors, my dad’s computers and the tv. My latest project was to make a hydraulic arm that uses no batteries and no motors, just the power of hydro-mechanics.
I would really love to be the computing champion for 5BF to excite my class mates about technology and love computers as much as I do. I’ve always wanted to be an astronaut and I think this will be my first step to one J
Theo (Year 5)
I think I would be a good subject champion for PE because I like to play lots of different sports and I also have a very wide experience of all types of fun games. PE is my favourite subject because you can work on your teamwork and become more friendly with different people. I would like to try and encourage others to try new sports, to build up their confidence and to improve their fitness. It would be a good opportunity to help people to be more active and want to take part in physical activities that we do around school.
Rudy (Year 5)
I believe I deserve to be maths champion because maths is my favourite subject and I am quite good at it. I have shown effort at home towards maths by playing TT Rockstars for 10 minutes plus daily. This is shown in me coming 3rd in the championship and having the fastest speed. I would love for other people to share my passion of maths as much as possible. I think this is important because maths is crucial in your life every day and therefore decent knowledge of maths can create more than just a subject in school. I would love the opportunity to be maths champion.
Benjamin (Year 6)
The subject champions will be reviewed every year enabling a large number of children to develop their leadership skills.
Sports Leaders – New positions coming soon…
