School Ambassadors

School Council

Update June 2023 – ‘Powered by Can’ School Council Project.
‘Powered by CAN’ work with children, young people and young adults across the Black Country and the wider Midlands region. They want to empower young people from the region to feel the same pride and purpose for their community as they do.  They believe in providing opportunities for young people and want to support them to lead the change they want to see, whether that’s at a personal level or within the local community.  Young people are at the heart of everything they do, and they ensure that they are always put first by doing the following:

  • Championing for young people and making their voices heard.
  • Encouraging young people to participate and involve themselves within their local community.
  • Kick starting personal and social development by providing fun and engaging arts, play and sport activities.

 

What we have achieved this year:
– Met for planning meetings/discussions one lunchtime per week.
– The School Council have been managing the School Council Shop, they follow a rota each week where they ensure the shop is well stocked, set up and sell items during breaktimes taking responsibility for the money.
– The house captains now have their black school sweatshirts making them more visible around school.
– They have been working on ideas for an Eco based project for the summer term.
Our plans for the summer term:
– Consider ways to promote and encourage ECO awareness across school.
– Investigate how the large profit from the school council shop could be spent.
 The School Council have been focused on running the school council shop. They have been feeding back ideas from classes across school on how best to spend the money from the shop (we are amounting to quite a large total!) They have been involved in promoting our values across school and in selecting our weekly Values Ambassadors. House Captains are involved with announcing house point totals in assemblies also.

The School Council at Old Park aims to provide the opportunity for pupils to become partners in their own education and to make a positive contribution to the school environment and ethos. We want to develop and promote children’s self-confidence, social skills and promote responsible behaviour towards each other and towards their teachers.

Old Park Primary School Council develops the pupil’s knowledge, skills and understanding of how to contribute to society as a whole and what it means to be an active citizen. We want to develop pupils’ recognition of themselves as worthwhile individuals with a right to ‘be heard’ and allow the children to have a ‘voice’ and to share their opinions and ideas with others.

At Old Park School, we want the School Council to develop important life skills that promote positive mental health and social welfare, emotional literacy, critical and moral reasoning, self-esteem, self-awareness, communication skills, relationship skills and assertiveness.

Class peers elect two members from each class who nominate themselves for the role. The post is for one year, unless elected again in the new academic year by following the election process. The exception of representatives are nursery and Year 1.  In Year 6 it is the House Captains that sit on the school council.

Meetings are held once a week whereby issues are discussed, ideas shared and concerns raised. Suggestions, improvements and notices then get fed back to classes via the class representatives. School council reps also help to lead House Assemblies house points are totalled and the weekly winners revealed.

Year 6 representatives run the School Council Shop, open daily at breaktimes Monday to Thursday, selling pens, pencils, notebooks and other small stationery items. School Council then vote on how the profit from the shop should be spent to benefit all pupils.

Sport Ambassador

What we have achieved this year:

The Sports Ambassadors/Assistants have completed Sandwell Young Leader training. They also completed a session on Bhangra Fitness as part of this.
They are now following a timetable at lunctimes where they spend part of their lunchtime once a week supporting younger pupils and engaging them in physical activity.
The Sports ambassadors have also supported with this year’s Dance-a-thon event to raise money for Clic Sargent.

 

Meet the Sport Ambassadors

 

Purpose and Aims

T – Teamwork

E –  Endurance

A –  Attitude

MMore

S – Success

 

Our Sports Council helps to ensure that pupils have:

  • A safe and happy sports learning environment
  • A forum to voice their concerns and act upon them
  • An opportunity to take an active part in the management of sports and promoting healthy living around school

Our Sports Council encourages pupils to develop:

  • A sense of ownership over policy and practice
  • A consensus over school issues, such as sports clubs and having a healthy lifestyle
  • Responsibility towards the school community and environment

Our Sports Council will give pupils experience of:

  • Planning, organising and monitoring sports clubs and dinner time clubs.
  • Speaking, listening and debating
  • Teaching them about roles, rights and responsibilities within the school system
  • Attending regular meetings and understanding the processes involved
  • Ensuring equipment is safe and at an appropriate level for the correct age group
  • Ensuring the P.E. areas of school are tidy and safe to enter
  • Reporting back to class after each meeting

 

 

 

Art Ambassadors

 

Meet the Art Ambassadors

Spring Update:  

We have been extremely busy this half term with promoting ‘The Arts’ and many competitions across the school alongside embedding our school values.
We have:
  • met fortnightly to discuss areas of Art, share ideas and launch new competitions.
  • planned to further enhance The Arts experience across school
  • had opportunities to discuss and share ideas with our year group.
  • liaise with other organisations around Wednesbury to participate in competitions
  • launched competitions in assembly
  • promoted a very special competition alongside the school council for our new school logo.
  • carried out surveys to help us gain an insight into what children would like to do
  • shortlisted the school logo entries and the entries for Queen’s Jubilee portrait project which is ran in Wednesbury
  • Met with a Local Artist (due to happen on Friday 6th May 2022)
  • made links to cross-curricular learning through The Arts, for example, the colouring skills competition links to RE and History.
  • Made links to Art and music
We have many ideas and plans for the Summer term:
  • to plan new experiences for the children of Old Park
  • to exhibit Artwork across the school
  • arrange small workshops for children during lunch time
  • plan and arrange ‘The Arts’ fair to fund raise (not confirmed yet)
  • plan a new competition for Summer term with ideas from the children around school
  • help Mrs Chadha organise the Art resources in the resources room
  • continue to make and develop Art and Music links

 

 

Purpose and Aims

A – ambition to grow

R – respect the work of others

T – thinking outside the box

I – imagination is the key

S – seeing the beauty in expression

T – talent is timeless

 

Our Arts council helps to ensure ambassadors have:

  • A safe and happy learning environment
  • A forum to voice their interests and expectations of the Arts in school
  • An opportunity to take an active part in the management of The Arts and promoting expression and creativity across the school

Our Arts council helps encourage ambassadors to develop:

  • A sense of ownership over what they and their peers explore about The Arts
  • Self-confidence in developing their own individual talents
  • Confidence to express themselves
  • Responsibility towards equipment and instruments used within lessons

Our Arts council will give ambassadors experience of:

  • Planning, organising and monitoring Arts activities and initiatives
  • Speaking and listening to the ideas of others
  • Teaching them about roles, rights and responsibilities within the school system
  • Attending regular meetings and understanding the processes involved
  • Ensuring equipment and instruments are safe and respected
  • Reporting back and encouraging class and peers to take part on Arts activities

 

Reading Ambassadors

Reading Ambassadors

Old Park’s Book Exchange:

Spring Update:  

Since commencing their roles, the reading ambassadors have been busy promoting a love of learning around school. They have:

  • Met weekly to discuss their vision promote reading for pleasure within school like the Old Park Book Swap.
  • They have judged our monthly reading competitions.
  • They have decided on a new competition idea each month.
  • The ambassadors have also been busy planning and sharing our half-termly reading competitions. Winning children receive a book from the vending machine which the ambassadors are responsible for.
  • They are taking it in turns to write a book review each month for the newsletter.
  • Preparing for an author visit from Steve Skidmore. The ambassadors spent time researching the different books that Steve has written which enabled them to visit each classroom and create a buzz about the upcoming visit! On the day of the visit, the ambassadors acted as Steve’s assistants, helping him to set up for the day. The children also prepared a list of questions to ask Steve; he allowed the children to interview him and his responses were published in our reading newsletter, Old Park are Hooked on Books! The whole school and the ambassadors thoroughly enjoyed the day!
  • Currently, the ambassadors’ next task is to launch a lunchtime book club for KS2 children.

“The best thing about reading is that there is a book on every topic that you could imagine, whisking you away on countless adventures, growing your imagination and learning new words along the way. What isn’t there to love!” – Old Park Reading Ambassadors.

The Reading Ambassadors’ prerogative is to embed a ‘reading for pleasure’ culture at Old Park. We aim to further develop our avid readers’ repertoire of books as well as encourage reluctant readers to discover the book for them. From years 2-6, there is a reading ambassador in each class; weekly meetings are held where the children discuss their ideas that we can move forward with.

Reading news and events are included in a monthly newsletter, Old Park are Hooked on Books, which the ambassadors contribute to. Together, the ambassadors plan and launch competitions where the children can win a brand new copy of a newly released book. The children also decide on features in the newsletter such as: author of the month, illustrator of the month and teacher book review of the month.

Being a reading ambassador allows the children to voice their ideas, selecting the most suitable and planning how to move forward with it. They gain a sense of accomplishment when their ideas are successful, as well as learning how to reflect on and develop ideas further that are not so successful.

 

Our Reading Ambassadors!

History Ambassadors
Children from KS2 with a love of History were given the opportunity to attend a History after school club and become History Ambassadors. In these sessions, the children explored their own chronology by bringing baby pictures of themselves. They also picked their own topic to research throughout the sessions. The ambassadors picked very diverse topics from World War 2, the Eiffel Tower, Ancient Greeks, Ancient Egyptian Hieroglyphics to the History of Denmark, the Sea, Japanese History, the separation of India and Pakistan as well as the war between Islam and Sikhism. The ambassadors then shared what they had learnt in their KS2 assembly to their peers to raise the profile of History throughout school. The ambassadors then created a final piece to showcase in their KS2 assembly. They made: a model of the Eiffel Tower, posters, World War 2 helmets, model buildings and a landscape painting of the sea which they proudly presented along with some interesting facts about their topic. The ambassadors have a key role in spreading their love of History and keeping it alive throughout school and have a dedicated display board which displays some of their creations.
Science Ambassadors

Our Science ambassadors have been working extremely hard – they are in the process of taking photographs of the practical, hands-on learning throughout the school; they have designed assembly slides to launch a competition; they are responsible for ensuring the science equipment is kept tidy and accessible; and they plan to write a feature in the school’s newsletter, promoting influential scientists from around the world.

Coming soon - Maths Ambassadors

Coming soon – Maths Ambassadors