Student Leadership
At Selwyn Primary School, we are proud to be a school where children learn, develop and grow. By the time they reach Year 6, they are ready to put themselves forward to take a more active role in school life through our student leadership structures and processes. Key structures are our student leadership team, and our school council.
Electing our student leaders: teaching our children about democracy
In the autumn term, we hold our annual elections for our school’s pupil leadership team. Children in Year 6 write a letter of application detailing the reasons why they believe that they are suitable candidates for the role and as a school leadership team, we then review the applications to produce a shortlist. All shortlisted candidates are children who consistently demonstrate that they are excellent role models for their peers and that they are already demonstrating leadership qualities at school.
Children who are shortlisted present their manifestos to all Key Stage 2 children (Years 3 to 6), after which they vote for their favourite candidate.
School Council: giving each classroom a voice
Our School Council comprises of children from every class across the school from Year 1 – Year 6. It is led by Mr. Iqbal who meets with the children every fortnight to discuss upcoming whole school events and issues that may arise in and around the school. The school council use this time to voice any questions that their classes or year groups have around a range of topics and feedback on the areas they have been assigned to focus on.
The School Council is decided via an election process in each class. At the beginning of the school year, children have the opportunity to deliver a speech detailing why they they will be a good representative for their class. The children then vote and the two children with the most votes are elected as their class’s school councillors.
One of the main roles of the school council is to promote any upcoming events that the school may be involved in. These are often fundraising events or opportunities for curriculum enrichment. To promote these events, the school council regularly record messages to be played to the children via the screens in the halls and they are also shared on our newsletters. We are very proud to have our BSL Ambassadors featured on each of our recordings to ensure that the messages are accessible to all of our children.
The council also use their meetings as opportunities to voice any concerns and ideas they may have about making the school a better place for them to learn and thrive.
This year, the school council has been split up into four ministerial roles: Travel Ministers, Healthy Eating Ministers, Anti-bullying Ministers and Wellbeing Ministers: this booklet provides further information.
A report back on the various School Council projects undertaken so far this year can be found here.
Our sports leaders
In addition to our school leadership roles and our School Council, we have a number of Sports Leader positions at Selwyn. Our Sports Leader group comprises of children from every class across the school from Year 2 to Year 6. Two children are selected from each class by the PE team of Mr. Boxall and Mr. Bailey.
Selection is based upon the performance and demonstration of leadership skills, initially in their PE lessons, but also around the school as a whole.
Sports leaders need to be trustworthy and reliable as they are given important responsibilities that are essential to create an active and safe environment for all our children to thrive in. Sports leaders will be in post for a whole term, before hanging up their hats and a new group are selected. There are six main objectives that sports leaders try to fulfil, which are outlined below, as well as some examples of them in action.
