Pupil Voice

At Gossey Lane Academy we believe that pupils should be given a wide range of opportunities to develop and practise leadership skills in preparation for life beyond school. Pupil leadership enables confidence building to raise aspirations and recognise the talent of the pupil body. We aim to provide opportunities for learners to develop leadership skills, empowering partnership between pupils and staff, to gain a deeper understanding of the curriculum areas and provide a contribution to the community they live in. Through the activities we hope everyone enjoys learning and is creative with trying new things, finding solutions and embracing their responsibilities.

Aims of our Pupil Leadership at Gossey Lane Academy

• To empower pupils to work in partnership with staff towards shared goals.
• To enable creativity to flourish as the school community benefits from the wealth of experiences, ideas, skills and sense of fun that pupils bring.
• To provide opportunities for pupils to develop leadership skills through a variety of inspiring, challenging and valued projects which impact positively on learning, teaching and well-being for both pupils and staff at Gossey lane Academy.
• To prepare pupils for the next stage of their education and for achieving personal and professional outside of school.

Why does Gossey Lane offer pupil leadership opportunities?

• Shows all pupils have leadership potential and provides opportunities for pupils to develop leadership skills.
• Contributes to raising standards and achievement.
• Raises self-confidence/maturity/responsibility.
• Enables creativity to flourish as the school benefits from a wealth of experiences.
• Empowers pupils to work in partnership.
• Prepares pupils for life beyond school.
• Raises aspirations.
• Improves behaviour.
• Contributes to the community they live in.

Pupil Leader expectations

Pupil Leaders are the school’s role models. They need to be pupils who work hard to reach our school’s expectation of good behaviour, good attendance, constant punctuality; they also need to be always in full and correct school uniform.

What Personal Qualities do Pupils need?

• Pupils should like working with and talking to other pupils.
• Pupils should be able to build good working relationships with staff.
• Pupils should be able to work well in a team.
• Pupils should want to make a lasting impact at school and be involved in decision making.
• Pupils should have good time management skills e.g. balancing commitments.
• Pupils should be polite, mature, responsible and reliable at all times.

Which rights respecting article do we champion? 

Article 13-  Freedom of Expression.  Every child must be free to express their thoughts and opinions and to access all kinds of information, as long as it is within the law. 

What does SNAG stand for and what is its function?

SNAG stands for School Nutrition Action Group. It is essentially a working party, formed to help review the schools food culture and develop and implement an action plan to improve it. 

A SNAG should comprise representation from all those who have an interest in food in school. Typically this will include one staff member, a parent or a governor and any other staff that may feel appropriate e.g. chef or midday supervisor.  It should include around 4–6 children, ensuring a mix of boys and girls, some who have dinners and some who have packed lunches.

Find out more about SNAG here

Our school menus

Our SNAG members are:

Ms Maher- Catering manager

Jayne Hill- WHMAT catering director 

Mrs Amin- Headteacher

Mrs Green- DT leader 

Pupil Leader TBC

Pupil Leader TBC

Lunchtime supervisor- to be confirmed 

Mrs Moore- Curriculum Enrichment lead 

Why do we have Eco Warriors?

Being an Eco Warrior is an ideal opportunity for our pupils to get more involved in the way our school is run and help us to be more environmentally friendly. It provides opportunities for pupils to communicate their feelings as well as influence decisions that are made.  Eco Warriors take on the responsibility of expressing their own views, but also the views of their peers as well as passing on information from eco meetings. As an Eco Warrior pupils will have the opportunity to develop skills such as confidence, communication and negotiation.

Who can be an Eco Warrior?

Any child at Gossey Lane school can become an Eco Warrior. A pupil from each class across the school are invited to apply to become a great Eco Warrior. We now have 6 Eco Warriors from year 1 to year 6.

What do our Eco Warriors do?

Our Eco Warriors help to care for out school environment: they help others to follow our eco-code, monitor our energy use in the school and encourage teachers and children to recycle. Eco Warriors will take part in discussions and votes and feedback any relevant information to their class. Members will meet regularly with Miss Watts to discuss their ideas.

Which rights respecting article do we champion? 

Article 24-  (health and health services) Every child has the right to the best possible health. Governments must provide good quality health care, clean water, nutritious food, and a clean environment and education on health and well-being so that children can stay healthy. Richer countries must help poorer countries achieve this.

Article 2

All children have these rights, no matter who they are, where they live, what their parents do, what language they speak, what their religion is, whether they are a boy or a girl, what their culture is, whether they have a disability, whether they are rich or poor. No child should be treated unfairly on any basis.

All pupils can apply for the post of Playground Champion. Our Champions take a leadership role in keeping all pupils safe and well cared for in school, socially, emotionally as well as academically.

They have accredited training from our Senior Learning Mentor. They are trained as ‘Playground Leaders’. This means they are available at lunchtimes to assist pupils, help with game playing and minor disagreements. They will be trained on peer-mediation in the Autumn term. 

Playground Champions meet with PHSE lead Mrs Moore to plan and move their role forward – ensuring safeguarding is a thread running through all the school does.

What personal qualities do Playground Champions need?

• As well as the pupil leader qualities above, pupils should have:
• A desire to help others, striving to improve situations.
• A willingness to learn from research.
• Staying ahead of class work so that they can attend fortnightly training session
• Good attendance
•  A calm and patient manner, understanding that things don’t always go to plan.
• The ability to show and learn leadership qualities, being able to take responsibility for managing a playground situation-even if this means passing it to a member of staff.
• Being a decision maker.
• Be a good communicator- who listens well and can investigate, clarify and summarise what has been said.

Click to read the rights of a child.

Which rights respecting article do we champion? 

Article 3-  (best interests of the child) The best interests of the child must be a top priority in all decisions and actions that affect children.

The present Pupil Leaders are our Rights Respecting Champions for 2022 and 2023.  Their role is to publicise all the Articles around school and to work positively for pupil’s rights.  This often means presenting to classes, running campaigns eg for Anti Bullying week, attending Rights Respecting meetings, surveying pupils’ views, collating the data and discussing issues at meetings.  These pupils need to understand the A, B, C, D, E of pupils’ rights and be ready to help others to do the same.

What personal qualities does a Rights Respecting Champion need?

As well as the pupil leader qualities above pupils should have: 

• The ability to think reflectively about whole school situations, without personalising them.
• The ability to think creatively about how we can be better citizens and to bring new ideas to trail, to our meetings.
• A willingness to investigate the Articles and understand the deeper meaning for students at Gossey Lane and across the globe.
• A desire to improve the lives of pupils at school and in our community.  Have the confidence to discuss this with others.
• The ability to be involved in research and understanding of Governmental directives applying these to the Articles, in a supportive group of Rights Respecting Staff and pupil leaders. 
• Be able to / willing to participate in debates concerning Rights. 

Article 2

All children have these rights, no matter who they are, where they live, what their parents do, what language they speak, what their religion is, whether they are a boy or a girl, what their culture is, whether they have a disability, whether they are rich or poor. No child should be treated unfairly on any basis.

Our Kiva champions are working with their class to develop the Kiva curriculum materials aiming for solution focussed work to eliminate bullying where it may exist.

Our aim is that all children feel safe at school, and accepted into our school community. Our ethos is one of inclusion and equality and upholding the Rights of the child.

What personal qualities does a Kiva Champion need?

As well as the pupil leader qualities above pupils should have:

• The enthusiasm to be involved in the programme. 
• A desire to learn new skills and try these out with others (pupils)
• A determination to succeed, having Pride in our school.
• Have very good listening skills or be prepared to develop these with support.
• A calm and thoughtful manner, the ability to be Reflective.
• Able to investigate through asking questions and re-present the information back to participants for reflection or acceptance.

 Which rights respecting article do we champion? 

Article 2- Our ethos is one of inclusion and equality and upholding the Rights of the child; bullying of any kind is regarded as a serious breach of our behaviour policy and will not be tolerated, whether it is a one-off incident or an ongoing campaign.

Our Gossey Gardeners are working towards Food for Life Silver award and Health for Life initiatives.  In an area of poor nutrition it is highly important that pupils understand what healthy food is and the value of a balanced meal.  Pupils are encouraged to take part in cooking and growing throughout the Science and DT curriculum. 

The Gossey Gardeners are looking after our newly refurbished allotment area so that pupils across the school can learn how to grow and care for plants, bringing them to harvest.  Our aim is to involve community members at harvest time to ‘get together’ over food, fostering intergenerational links and learning.

What personal qualities does a Gossey Gardener need?

As well as the pupil leader qualities above pupils should have:

• Enthusiasm to work out doors and give of their time after school/ outside school hours.
• Patience and resilience- plants don’t always grow successfully.
• Happy to get muddy and dirty- sometimes!
• Enjoys cooking and growing and talking about food.
• Able to commit to regular allotment slots to ensure plants do not go thirsty, or become overgrown by weeds.
• Willingness to share this learning/ activities within own class, in a variety of ways.

Which rights respecting article do we champion? 

Article 15- (freedom of association) Every child has the right to meet with other children and to join groups and organisations, as long as this does not stop other people from enjoying their rights.

The Sports council is being developed across 2022- 2023. Sports council members work with Mrs Moore and our Sports Coach Mr Burke to further the range of sporting activities at all levels for Gossey pupils.

Already In July 2022 we participated in a sports day using wheelchairs to understand the challenges for Paralympian’s/ Para sports people.  We had great fun- but it was super difficult! We have plans to implement the Daily Mile for 2022.         

PE teams or houses may be used for more inter school competitions.  We hope to develop a range of after school activities and these have already begun.  We are presently competing against other WHMAT schools in a range of sports.

What personal qualities does a Sports Council member need?

As well as the pupil leader qualities above pupils should have: 

• Enthusiastic for a range of differing sports (not necessarily talented at sport)  Accepting that everyone is different in their views about sport.
• Open to try different activities.
• Enjoy working with and meeting competitors from other schools.
• Ability to be a sporting ambassador- publicising the sporting ideas of Gossey Lane Academy.
• Self-control in new situations and resilience when situations become demanding.
• Able to speak clearly (present) to audiences of pupils from other settings as well as Gossey Lane Academy.

Which rights respecting article do we champion? 

Article 29- Your education should help you develop your interests and talents.