AldringtonChange Makers
School Councillors
Having presented strong reasons explaining why they should be their representative for the year, two children from each class are voted in to be School Councillors. Every month, they meet Mrs Robins to discuss ways to make changes in the school to make things better for their school community and for God’s world. Ideas are discussed with their peers and brought back to the following meeting to be shared and to make decisions. For example, they helped to choose the new KS1 climbing apparatus and the play equipment in KS2. They also regularly speak with the parent group, Parents of Aldrington (POA), with decision-making. For example in selecting music for school discos and stalls for the Christmas Fair.
Faith Councillors
Every Easter, children in each class explain to their peers why it is important to them to be their Faith Councillor and one is voted in. Twelve children from Y1 to Y6 then meet monthly with Mrs Butters to discuss how they can make changes at Aldrington to help the children in ‘Learning God’s Way’. Questions are discussed, taken back to class to be discussed further with peers and brought back to the following meeting to be shared and decisions made. This can be in relation to collective worship, daily spirituality and well-being. They also serve the school community by leading in prayers in collective worship and signing songs to aid understanding, reflection and spiritual worship. At our monthly Bishop Hannington service they are the welcome team, guides to class seats, prayer leaders and song signers, helping the community (including parents/carers) to worship together.
Eco Leaders
In response to our work with Our City Our World, we acknowledge that change will not happen if only a few people are taking responsibility for greening our school curriculum. Therefore, we are all eco warriors this year. However, we have a number of different roles in each class to ensure that we are combatting climate change. For example, as we are focusing on 'energy' this term, our Eco Leaders are energy monitors in each class, whose job it is to ensure that we are keeping our classrooms warm, at 18'c, and turning off any unused electrical devices. In the Spring term we will be focusing on food, for example food wastage, when we will appoint new Eco Leaders to guide our changes to a better future. Our Eco Leaders support their peers in making best use of our recycling opportunities at Aldrington, eg compost and plastic packaging.
Courageous Advocates
Every year, all of our children work hard to raise funds to help others in our local community and across the world, with a charity chosen by those in our school community. Many of our children also choose to raise money at home (eg selling home grown plants in front of their house) and in school (eg selling home-baked cakes after school), others have slept in a tent overnight to raise awareness for the homeless and have done a daily sponsored run to support a local charity (previously supported by Aldrington). However, their keenness to be change makers is not only based on giving money, they constantly give their time and skills. For example, juniors who regularly collect the litter pickers and go around both the KS1 and KS2 playgrounds picking up wind-blown litter and others who gather up the gardening tools and spend their lunch hours weeding the pathways and tidying the raised flower beds. They never receive rewards for their services and yet offer again and again, smiling and chatting as they change our school environment for the better.
This year, each class is finding an area they feel needs improving, researching the problem, finding solutions and then putting these changes into action to make a difference. Children are considering from a range of ideas from improving areas for reflection and spirituality, changes in relation to Our City Our World, improving our school environment, to changes needed in the local area surrounding our school.
Find out more about the work Aldrington children do as courageous advocates by following the below links: