Pupil Voice

At Bolsover Infant and Nursery School Pupil Voice is valued, we recognise that every child has the right to a voice and for their opinion to be taken seriously. We believe even our very youngest children have a valid opinion about their school and how they best thye learn. ‘Pupil Voice’ provides pupils with the opportunity to become involved in how and what they learn, give them a real say in issues that affect them, allowing them to make positive contributions towards the development of their school as active members in a democratic society.

We believe involving children in school can help:

• Motivate children
• Make children feel part of school and develop belonging
• Improve relationships between children and adults
• Develop practice
• Develop children’s views and opinions
• Develop life and learning skills inc communication and social skills
• Support collaboration

And much more!

As a school we feel it is important to gather all children's opinions, rather than just those on a school council or such like organisations. Over time, the school has developed a very effective approach to pupil voice and to ensuring that pupils have the skills to take responsibility and to contribute to decisions. Gathering Pupil voice with Infants and Pre school children is difficult as they can often be eager to please adults, we wanted to ensure we used a range of approaches so the our senior Leadership Team gained a solid understanding of what children though etc. In the past we have used a range of ways including:

• Developing strong relationships so that adults are in tune with children's needs
• Class discussions
• Floorbooks
• PSHE sessions and circle time
• Pupil questionnaires
• Open events at Spring term open evening
• Small focused groups
• Homework activities
• Miss Cowan's A Team
• Competitions.
• Suggestion boxes
• Pupil conferencing

Listening

Why do we listen to young children?

We listen to young children because:
● it acknowledges their right to be listened to and for their views and experiences to be taken seriously
● of the difference listening can make to our understanding of children’s priorities, interests and concerns
● of the difference it can make to our understanding of how children feel about themselves
● listening is a vital part of establishing respectful relationships with the children we work with and is central to the learning process.

In our school we feel by developing a listenig culture we can nuture respect and confident rrelationships and create positive enviroments for children. Environments which support and enhance learning, based on the needs and interests of childrn. This contributes to quality improvement in out setting, serviesand provides ongoing evaluation and responsiveness. We believe by provide children with this listening culture we can best gather children's wishes, opinions and ideas. 

What do we know about our school as a result?

In January 2022 we completed a Pupil questionnaire where we asked parents to support their children in trying to anser a range of questions. We gathered some interesting data:

• 100% of respondents to our Pupil questionnaire in Jan 2022 said that their child enjoyed school all or some of the time, which is fabulous, but a whopping 74% said that they enjoyed it all of the time.
• 100% of children said their teachers helps them do their best, but more impressive is that 81% said they do this all of the time.
• 98% of children felt the work was challenging some or all of the time, with 54% saying it was always challenging.
• 100% said they enjoyed learning some or all of the time, with 84% saying they enjoyed learning all of the time.

Children overwhelmingly felt they were listened too and there was someone they could tell their worries to and all of the respondents felt behaviour was mostly good in lessons and around school. All children felt safe in school and have only identified very minor issues for us to look into (which be will soon). Emotional and mental health, as well as physical health came out as a huge strength of the school, but Reception after school clubs are something people would like (although we struggling with this for a number of reasons, which is why we don’t offer them, these include: funding, staffing, space and children’s stamina).

All children felt they were encouraged to be independent and take responsibility and overwhelmingly felt they were respected and treated equally. 98% of children felt they were aware of what their next steps were in learning, but when asked what more children would like to know the questionnaire often referred to what parents would like to know, not the child (although we are grateful for these responses and will discuss them as a school). 98% of children said they would recommend us to a friend, which is fabulous.

 Many of the comments made by the children were extremely complementary and were a great read. We have included a few below:

• I like it. They teach me a lot. They’ve taught me timetables. I like my teacher (Mrs Fernandez) and I support other people if they fall over to help them be happy.
• I like my school and my teachers I will be sad when I go to big school…
• I love my school
• “I love my teachers and friends”
• I enjoy all my lessons and my teachers are always nice to me

Floorbooks

The use of floor books across school has helped us have a closer conversation with groups of children around school topics. Children have shared their opinions of learning, resources and activities using floorbooks.

Feedback 

The SLT have used feedback from individuals and groups around things such as school extra curricular activities including after school clubs and events. One such activity told us how much children enjoy dress up days and how they wished we had more of these across the year. Something we clearly followed up on!

 Other things children have told us and how we reacted: