We have fantastic children at The Pochin School who are keen to participate fully in the life of the school. As such they are voted into various roles within school.
School Council
Each class in school vote for two children, one girl and one boy, to represent them on the School Council. Class 5 and the rest of the school vote for a Head Boy and Head Girl who run and chair the School Council meetings.
The Council meet once a week with the Headteacher and bring forward ideas on how the children in their class think the school can be improved. These are discussed and often taken on to a whole school assembly and shared with all the children for their thoughts. Sometimes these come back to School Council for further discussion, refinement and then implementation.
The school council this year have also taken on further responsibility by advertising, interviewing and appointing members of the school to play key roles throughout the school, such as ‘Language Ambassadors’, ‘Cultural and Arts Curators’, Librarians etc.
The school council also make up vital working groups to help develop the school curriculum, such as a Maths working group, and sustain the positive atmosphere around the school, through such activities as auditing behaviour and attitudes in the playground and around the school.
Here are a few quotes from the School Council about our school:
- “The educational visits are amazing.” – Gamaleil
- “I like writing about our fun themes. I like the Fab Finales, especially when we dressed up as pirates with our parents.” – Grace
- “You make friends very quickly. The teachers make you feel very clever.” – Eva
- “When you begin to do your work, the teacher and the work makes you feel confident and excited.” – Kingsley
- “The cooking lessons are amazing. We have the 5 Golden rules which keeps us safe. Our suggestion boxes help us to make improvements in the school.” – William
- “The teachers include fun activities during lessons.” – Isabel
- “The teachers give you work that you are capable of.” – Jessica
- “The teachers make you work hard, in a good way. We have good equipment in classes to use daily.” – Ollie
- “If there are words you don’t understand in a question, the teacher will change the words so that you can answer the questions clearly.” – Eva-Marie
- “The teachers are kind and they help you to be very intelligent. No-one in the school bullies you. If you’re stuck with any questions, the teachers help you and make sure you never give up.” – Shayan
Impact
We never used to grow and cook our own food. The school council suggested it and now we are planting vegetables to use when we do cooking.
On your birthday you get to wear non-uniform . On Fridays we have a main assembly, if you wear your non-uniform on that assembly the whole school sings ‘Happy Birthday to you’.
The School Council saw a few children on their own in the playground and decided to create a friendship stop for anyone who was on their own. Now no one is lonely at breaktimes.
Head Girl and Boy
These two children represent the school on official occasions, for example if we have a special visitor to the school.
They also play an important role on our school services at church. They begin each service by welcoming people and can play a special part, for example when they present Mr Pochin with a bunch of flowers at the Founder’s Day Service each July as rent for allowing us to use the school garden.
House Captains
There are two houses within the school, Charnwood and Windsor.
The children are denoted by the colour of their school ties, red for Windsor and yellow for Charnwood. Children are randomly placed into one of the two houses unless they have a family member already in a house, this could be a sibling or someone older such as a parent who came to The Pochin School.
The House Captains collect house points each week and present them at a whole school assembly on Friday. These scores are tallied up and a cup presented by Mr Pochin at the Founder’s Day service in July.
The House Captains also play an important part in our annual Sports Day where they have to make a brief speech to everybody at the Cricket Ground if their team wins, or a speech at a tea in the Village Hall if their team loses.
Prefects
Prefects perform various roles within the school such as helping the younger children, distributing registers twice a day and emptying the fruit bowls for recycling each day. These daily jobs are essential to the smooth running of the school. The latter three roles are voted for by the other children in the school.
During an election campaign, the candidates give a speech to the children in school at an assembly describing why they want the post and why the other children should vote for them. The children are then voted for democratically in a secret ballot. They are then presented with their badges of office at a special assembly at church called the Dedication Service. We always have someone special to present the badges and in recent years have had the local MP, Bishop of Leicester, the architect who has overseen the building works at school over the last five years and a Chief Constable to name a few. This year we were pleased to welcome back the previous headteacher, Mr Cotton to present the badges.
School Jobs
At The Pochin School we highly value children taking responsibility for the community and working together in creating an inspirational learning environment.
The School Council have created a number of jobs which the children can apply to do throughout the year. The roles have been decided by the school council in consolation with teachers and pupils. A job description has been given and desirable qualities decided upon. A formal application form is used for the children to demonstrate they have the skills and the determination to carry out their role successfully. The school council interview pupils to find the best candidate for the jobs. Each job comes with a wage of house points.
Please see below the job adverts.
