Pupil Voice Groups

We value the opinion of all our children and promote pupil voice groups to support the school in its continued development.

We have an active School Council, voted for by the children and they are involved in many aspects of school life linked to teaching and learning. We also have a Wellbeing Ambassador group who take the  lead on supporting children with their mental wellbeing.

Our House Captains are also a key pupil voice group and they are nominated by their Teachers for being role models in demonstrating our school community values.

School Council Introduction

School Council has an important role at Hiltingbury Junior School. We represent the voices of all pupils from year 3 to year 6 and meet regularly with Miss Chambers to discuss school improvement issues, make decisions and drive forward positive changes.

The election of School Council members reflects our British electoral system and demonstrates democracy in action: candidates make speeches, we consider qualities important for an elected representative and we then have the opportunity to vote for who we would like to be elected.  

Some of our key responsibilities include:

• Taking a lead on our School Curriculum;
• Promoting our Hiltingbury Learner skills and encouraging pupils and teachers to continue to develop these;
• Driving improvements linked to our whole school priorities;
• Leading themed weeks and assemblies;
• Leading our work on Anti-bullying;
• Organising our whole school careers afternoon.

Some of our biggest achievements in the last year have been to carry out a whole school survey exploring behaviour and safety and we then produced a video to share our findings. This helped us decide on our key priorities for the year ahead.

In November each year, we are proud to lead Anti-bullying week in school. We work hard to help all children in our school understand what bullying is, what actions to take if they spot it happening and how to promote our community value of Kindness too. This year's Anti-Bullying week on the theme of 'Reach Out' was a huge success and we enjoyed collaborating with the Wellbeing Ambassadors, joining together in the Wellbeing Hub at breaktimes and lunchtimes as a place for everyone to 'Reach Out' if they need to.

A project we are working on this year is to carry out learning reviews in classes. Together, we have designed a template which helps us focus on what we see in classes and what it tells us and we share our feedback with governors, children and teachers. This term we have been driving our whole school focus on Working Together and we have visited classes, developed targets for everyone to work on, shared these messages in assemblies and evaluated our progress against these targets. We are looking forward to driving the same progress with our next learning value (Ambition) in the Spring Term. 

The views of all pupils in the school are really important to us and we have a post-box in our School Office where anyone can add their suggestions or ideas.

Being in School Council is something we take very seriously and we are proud of the difference we are making for our peers.

Wellbeing Ambassadors

Our Wellbeing Ambassadors do exactly as it says: promote the positive wellbeing of each and every child at Hiltingbury. Working closely with Mr Wright, our Senior Mental Health Leader, they meet regularly to discuss ways to help support the positive wellbeing of their peers.  Each Wellbeing Ambassador is reliable, trustworthy, open and honest.

The role of the Wellbeing Ambassadors includes:

• To promote positive mental health and wellbeing.
• To attend regular meetings with Mr Wright to talk about the well-being of the children.
• To monitor their class’s Listening Box to ensure worries and concerns are addressed.
• To encourage other children to talk and share their feelings, and concerns.
• To be someone who can listen, support and ask for help for their peers.
• To support fellow pupils at break and lunchtimes who may be sad, worried or upset.
• To lead themed weeks, assemblies and/or projects related to mental health and wellbeing e.g. Honesty Day and Time to Talk Day.

 

The Wellbeing Ambassadors are a key part of the Pupil Voice at Hiltingbury, providing a listening ear and shoulder of support to their peers. Sometimes we all need that someone to talk to.

Working in partnership with the class teacher and the Pastoral Team, the Wellbeing Ambassadors are integral to ensuring the positive wellbeing of all children through open and honest communication. Recently, the theme of self-confidence was highlighted as an area that children across the school needed support with; subsequently, themed assemblies and projects have been put in place to support with this.

 

School Cyber Ambassadors Introduction

We are the School Cyber Ambassadors we meet regularly to discuss important issues in our school. We represent the voices of all children, from year 3 to year 6, and work hard to affect positive change. 

Our Cyber Ambassadors have been trained in cyber safety and act as a friendly point of contact for all other students on any online concerns/worries. Their role is to raise and improve the profile and understanding of online safety at home and school. They will pass on their learning and offer helpful support to their peers through meetings, assemblies and online safety days. By doing this, they ensure that children respect each other online and learn to make the right choices.

Just ask us... Cyber Ambassadors!

• For information about keeping safe on websites, apps and games,
• How to block, report and tell if you don’t feel safe,
• And we are always available when needed!

School Sports Leaders

At Hiltingbury, we have an enthusiastic group of Sports Leaders from across the school who are keen to improve P.E, School Sport and Physical Activity (PESSPA) across the school. Sports Leaders apply at the start of each academic year by writing a letter of application stating why they think they would make an excellent candidate for the job and most importantly, why they want to be one!

Sports Leaders help to organise and lead events such as Sports Day, Inter-house Sports and give opinions on what they would like our PE and sport provision at Hiltingbury to offer in the future.

In addition, our Sports Leaders lead playground games and activities each lunchtime for children to enjoy, increasing the amount of physical activity they are doing.  They lead games and also look after the P.E equipment.  This role develops important values such as friendship, respect and kindness as well as building their confidence and communication skills throughout the year.

The children play an invaluable role in promoting a healthy lifestyle amongst their peers and are keen to support their peers in getting enough physical activity.

Our Sports Leaders are:

• Passionate
• Considerate
• Kind
• Respectful
• Inclusive
• Creative
• Motivated

What our Sports Leaders say about the role:

“I enjoy spreading my love of sport with other children.”

“We love finding new, creative games for children to play and enjoy.”

“The role has helped give me more confidence.”

House Captains

The House Captains are a group of Year 6 pupils who are kind, respectful and embody all of our school values.

Congratulations to this year's House Captains!

Our role is to lead our respective houses (hopefully to victory!) and organise and motivate students to participate in house activities. We do this through assisting teachers to organise inter-house events while mentoring other children in our houses. Additionally, we liaise with students in other leadership roles to support the development of other initiatives, such as our cyber ambassadors and internet safety. On top of all that, we lead and support the children in our houses in a variety of competitions and whole school events. We work closely with the PE department and year 6 staff, providing ongoing ideas and support. Every Friday, we collect and announce the house points in our weekly assemblies as well rewarding our respect trophy: helping to promote tidy and organised working environments.