What is the goal of education? While the answer is multifaceted, as a teacher, I believe it’s crucial to equip children with the skills needed to become happy individuals who are prepared to thrive in adulthood.

Amongst the core skills essential for success in both adult life and pursuing a career, leadership is always at the forefront. Like all life skills, leadership can only be developed through experience, which is why at Woodville Primary School, we offer all of our pupils opportunities to lead in an area of school life. I’m excited to share some examples of our pupil leadership roles and why they matter.

Partnering with local secondaries to train Play Leaders

It is well recognised that play improves children’s cognitive skills and builds social competence and resilience. We collaborate with another school within our multi-academy trust, William de Ferrers School, to give our group of pupils, known as Play Leaders, the skills to lead on playground activities and understand how to ensure safe conduct. This knowledge is used by the Play Leaders to support other children on the playground, teaching them new games and encouraging collaborative play between younger and older children to make sure everyone is involved.

This experience not only forms strong bonds between pupils across age groups, but it also develops the Play Leaders’ social and teamwork skills and has them act as positive mentors that the school community can look up to.

Fostering confidence with our Student Leaders

Having good role models is crucial to children’s early development, and this is the position our Year 6 Student Leaders fall into: acting as responsible role models for children both in and out of the classroom while building their confidence.

To become a Student Leader, pupils must create their own election campaigns, design posters and give speeches to their peers about their qualities and the ideas that make them a strong candidate for the role. The successful leaders are chosen through a voting system, which helps to build their understanding of democratic process and social responsibility, a core part of the British values that we aim to instil in our pupils from a young age.

To continue building rapport, and part of their responsibility as a Student Leader, pupils check in with their peers outside of classes to see how they are doing, lead our weekly achievement assemblies and give out prizes. In addition, they meet regularly with the Headteacher to discuss school life. By working closely with adults and authority figures, they develop a sense of responsibility and can clearly see the impact of the work they are doing.

Woodville pupils meet Sir John Whittingdale

Enhancing student voice through our School Council

Members of our School Council, made up of pupils from Year 2 to 6, are responsible for uplifting the school community and taking a lead on facilitating improvements within the school.

Council Leaders hold discussions with their peers on what they would like to see changed at the school and relay the cohort’s collective thoughts to our Headteacher. Outside of the occasional suggestions that are a little too out of the box (yes, a pupil did request a rollercoaster in the playground!), many of their suggestions are taken on board. For example, some of our pupils suggested that our uniform was not smart enough, which resulted in the inclusion of a tie in our updated uniform, and this has remained to this day!

It’s crucial for fostering pupil agency that these opportunities lead to real, tangible change – something pupils can see and be reminded of in their daily school life. This helps them develop decision making and critical thinking skills, while also showing them the power of voicing their ideas and working together to make a difference.

Mental Health Ambassadors

For a healthy and happy life, children must understand the importance of looking after themselves, and although teaching staff play a key role in this, who better to help vocalise the importance of protecting mental health than their own peers?

Our Mental Health Ambassadors introduce themselves during an all school assembly and are involved in wellbeing projects throughout the academic year. Most recently, they created a tree display where every leaf is the hand of a pupil and written on the fingers are five qualities about themselves that make them stand out and proud to be themselves. Projects such as these encourage our pupils to discuss their aspirations for the future and what makes them happy. Taking on an ambassador role is a great opportunity for pupils to develop leadership elements of empathy and strong communication skills, whilst, as with all our leadership roles, acting as peers that inspire others.

These opportunities are an ever-evolving structure. With the introduction of Eco Warriors and House Captain roles, and plans for Attendance Leaders in the future, we are continually working towards expanding the range of student leadership roles our pupils can pursue. As a teacher, there’s no better feeling than watching our pupils take the reins within the school community and blossom into confident, driven and caring young people.

Carly Sorrell, Teacher at Woodville Primary School