Pupil Voice has had a slightly different shape since the new year, as we move onto a new phase of the project.
Firstly, it’s important to acknowledge that we had almost 350 responses from young people to our surveys of house and school names, dress code, and vision and values. For those of you still waiting to see if your favourite name for the school made it through, please be patient. There are lots of people involved in that decision! This level of engagement shows really clearly the young people’s sense of ownership in this project, and it’s been great to find out their thoughts and read their comments. This has been especially important for the inclusion of young people who might find it more challenging to speak out in group situations- all voices are valued.
Young people have also been getting involved in the recruitment of our staff team. Pinkie pupils were a huge help in setting questions for our Curriculum Leader interviews. Their suggestions included:
- How will you make sure that all pupils know about hidden disabilities?
- How will you make sure that we all leave school able to cook healthy things that are easy to make?
- How will you make sure that everyone gets involved in your subject, even if they think they are not very good at it?
- How will you make sure the work is hard enough for people who might find it quite easy?
Questions like these have really made candidates think on their feet, and helped us to get a real sense of how they will respond to our young people.
Pupils from Wallyford will be involved, this coming week, in compiling questions for our class teacher interviews, which take place throughout March and April. I am sure they will continue to be a great support to the process.
We will be reconvening and building on our regular Pupil Voice sessions in the spring. Mr Valentine will be leading some groups focused on what we are calling ‘ways of being’. Mr Valentine has a real passion for what is referred to as character education. The idea behind this is that education is as much about learning how to be in the world as it is learning facts and figures. Our senior leadership team has very high standards when it comes to how we treat each other, and takes wellbeing, inclusion and anti-bullying approached very seriously. We know that lots of our young people feel the same.
Mrs Stewart-Young will be leading discussions around classroom experiences. We want to make sure that we are working with everyone in our school community to give young people as much consistency as possible across the different areas of the curriculum. It’s important that we all know what to expect when it comes to our daily classroom routines, as well as thinking about learning actively, learning together, and how we assess our learning.
They are both very excited (that word again!) to get into all three of our partner schools in the next few weeks.