Student Voice

At Coombe Hill Junior School we believe that all pupils should have the opportunity to share their pupil voice and participate in whole school development. We respect and value the contributions they make in improving our school environment encouraging them to get involved with the wider school community.

We do this in a number of ways:

• Pupils have the opportunities to take on a number of leadership and monitor roles such as; Head Boy and Girl, House Captains, Vice Captains and subject area monitors.

• The Curriculum we provide allows a vast amount of opportunity for pupils to develop the skills, knowledge and understanding when using their pupil voice.

• Pupils regularly create mind maps at the beginning of their topics and review their learning at the end of the topic. This enables them to discuss the topics and demonstrate progression in their skills, knowledge and understanding.

• Pupils are provided the opportunity to feedback to year group teams about their learning over the course of the term, sharing things they’ve enjoyed, learning that has engaged them and subjects they’ve found challenging. This all cycles back into teachers’ planning for the future.

• We have a separate Pupil Parliament, Green Team and Digital Leaders representative groups. This ensures that the pupils get the opportunity to have a role at some point during their Coombe Hill Junior school experience. It also means that we have two separate groups both working towards improving the school in different ways.

• Pupil Parliament plays a major part in making our school a better place and ensuring the opinions and ideas from their peers are shared weekly at a ‘Pupil Voice’ meeting. Pupil Parliament provides opportunities for pupils to further express their thoughts by asking whole school questions. The feedback they receive is then discussed and acted upon by the School Council and Coombe Hill Junior School staff.

• The Green Team also have a fortnightly meeting with the Pupil Voice coordinator. This meeting ensures that effective and sustainable environmental action plans are in place that all pupils are aware of and that they work together to ensure our school is as green as possible.

• We have trained Peer Mediators who ensure that during play times the pupil’s feelings are heard and are able to resolve any issues through effective communication.

• We have also introduced Play Leaders who organise games and activities at lunch time to involve children who find it more challenging to find something to do during the longer break time.