Pupil Voice

School Parliament

Our school parliament representatives are elected by their class and work alongside others to have a positive impact on our school and give all our pupils a voice to share their opinions and ideas.

Our chair’s welcome:

Welcome to our School Parliament. We meet every half term and work together to give children a voice in school. We listen to their ideas and discuss how these can be implemented. It’s wonderful being part of the School Parliament because you have the opportunity to help and support others.

How does our School Parliament work?

  • Each class will elect a School Parliament representative
  • The School Parliament representative from each class will attend a meeting every half term to put across the views of their peers
  • Our School Parliament will create initiatives to improve our school, including how we can promote healthy and nutritious snacks
  • Our representatives will collaborate with our Guardians of the Earth representatives

What do we aim to achieve from our School Parliament?

  • Working and learning together
  • Promoting our school values
  • Learning about democracy
  • Understanding how to play a positive role in our community
  • Improving our school for everyone

Guardians of the Earth

Guardians of Earth ambassadors are a ‘sustainable action group’ giving children a voice in our school to help become more environmentally friendly. This action group originated from an Erasmus+ project called ‘Learn 4 Earth’ (http://learn4earth.eu/learn4earth/about-learn4earth/ ) in 2021.

The children apply for the job role at the beginning of every academic year and get voted in by  their class to represent them. Throughout the year, the ambassadors meet regularly to asses the sustainability of the school and put into place any actions that they wish to implement. For example, in 2021-2022 the Guardians of Earth decided that the school should be more sustainable in the area of food waste and worked on a project of ‘Eating More Potato Skins’ where they held a whole school assembly, held skype sessions with Italian scientists from the university of Gastronomic Sciences in Italy, and met with a local farmer. Also, the children attended the Lincolnshire Show and entered into the school challenge where they were placed 3rd for their ‘Food For Thought’ project. We also presented the outcome of the project at Terra Madre Salone del Gusto in Turin, Italy.

Here is a link to our current sway project  https://sway.office.com/Y229q9j2TRg3L5ya?ref=Link&loc=mysways

School Nutrition Action Group 

Our School Nutrition Action Group (SNAG) meet once a half term. The group is made up of one representative from each class, our school chef, food education leaders, our forest school leader and school gardener.  

Our job is to discuss the school lunch menu, giving feedback from the current menu and hearing what will be on the next term’s menu. We find out what is growing in our school allotment and other areas around the school to let chef know what is ready to harvest and discuss what we would like to grow the next year. Chef values the opinion of the pupils who eat the food he cooks and so our SNAG members should have a hot school meal or ready to rumble at least once a week. We also review our food education lessons to see what we have been cooking, sharing our opinions with chef of recipes we enjoyed and would like to see on the school lunches menu. 

To apply to be a class SNAG representative, pupils need to plan one healthy school meal that they would like to see on our school menu. They need to be happy to talk about what they enjoy eating and give suggestions for the next term, taking into consideration their class’ view as well. From time to time our SNAG members will need to feed back to and from their class about any changes to the school menu or growing areas here at Washingborough Academy. 

Our School Parliament is a group of students who are elected to represent the views of their fellow students. Meetings are held on a regular basis to discuss any relevant issues.

On Wednesday 25th February 2016, we had a fascinating visit to the Houses of Parliament. It was wonderful to have a tour of the Palace of Westminster and to be there while ‘Prime Minister’s Question Time’ was on (we even got to see the Prime Minister!). After a very informative workshop it was a fitting end to meet with our own MP, Stephen Phillips QC, who spent a lot of time answering all our questions. A day we will never forget.

We are looking forward to visiting again in the future.