Pupil Leadership
At Gorsefield Primary School, we embrace the inevitable challenges and fixed hardships that our diverse community experience, however we see this as an opportunity to shape the landscape of learning and leadership, for all our pupils, including pupils beyond our school within in our Forward as One ‘One Family.’
Well-considered pupil leadership enables pupils to develop vital non-cognitive skills such as conscientiousness, teamwork and emotional maturity. Leadership opportunities can also provide pupils with the skills that inspire, motivate and influence others, and the deliberate teaching and opportunities of pupils’ leadership, when done well, can build life skills such as communication, conflict resolution and decision making. These essential qualities help to distinguish pupils in an extremely competitive and ever-changing world. Educating the whole person brings wider benefits to community and society too. It enables equality of opportunity, fair pursuit of jobs and further education, and increased social mobility.
With this vision in mind, we outwardly consider the broad picture of leadership across the UK. We know that our pupils do not only have the talent to carry these positions later in their life, but have every possibility of shaping and changing the future for their own and future generations.
Data compiled by StandoutCV (2023), reports on statistics on leadership.
They found that:
• 90% of FTSE 100 CEOs are men, and 96% are white
• 96% of FTSE 100 CEOs are white
• Only 28% of all executive roles in the FTSE 100 are held by women
• Female CEOs in the FTSE 100 earn 15% less than male CEOs
• There are no women of colour holding CEO positions in the FTSE 100
Additionally, the UK Parliament’s House of Commons Library released data of its 2019 cohort of MPs. The demographic of MPs showed that:
• 65 of MPs were from minority ethnic backgrounds, 10% of the total
• There were 220 female MPs elected at the 2019 General Election (34% of all MPs)
• Conservative MPs elected at the 2019 General Election were the most likely to have attended a fee-paying school (44%)
• On average, the balance of male to female MPs increases by 1% each year.
Providing that this trend continues, an equal balance of male and female politicians will be reached by the earliest, 2035. This means for Year 6 pupils, they would be 22 years of age, old enough to represent their respective party. This is why our time is now.
Both Gorsefield and Forward as One’s mission is to challenge the current demographic and create inclusive, representative leaders of the future, including those from social deprivation, poverty, and ethnically diverse communities. We want pupils to take charge of rapid change and engage with our local communities, bringing their own personal experiences and challenges to a national level. We know as educators, and citizens of the 21st century, that talent is equally distributed, but opportunity is not. It is our job to bridge the gap not only for our communities but for the young people who make them stronger.
We have therefore devised a 2-layered approach to pupil leadership.
1) Gorsefield Primary School Little Leaders and Young Leaders, including their respective Departments.
This pupil leadership structure exemplifies Fundamental British Values through mirroring the Governmental structure of Departments. Pupil leadership is distributed across six departments: Department of Education; Health, Wellbeing and Safety; Rights & Justice; Sports; Environment; and Media and Culture. Each of these departments, and the leaders within them, play an important role in contributing to the vision, ideas, shaping and making a significant impact to life in school and beyond.
Each department consists of ‘Little Leaders’ and ‘Young Leaders’. Our Little Leaders comprise of children in KS1, and their positions focus on key tasks that ensure that school runs effectively. Our Little Leaders lead about the skills required for operational tasks, such as organisation, turn-taking and listening. For example, Little Leaders in the Department for Media and Culture share Picture News articles with each class, which are placed in classroom reading areas. These accessible jobs give our youngest pupils great operational responsibility, whereas our Young Leaders take a more strategic direction in the visionary outlook of the school, learning the vital skills needed for visionary/ strategic leadership such as coaching techniques, innovation, aligning etc. For instance, our Department for Education recently consulted about the school’s feedback policy, playing an integral part in shaping its key elements and monitoring the impact of this through quality assurance opportunities.
All pupils must apply to be a member of each department. Their applications must include evidence of their commitment to learning, understanding the eight learning goals and how they are able to demonstrate this for the department chosen. Close links are made to the Learning without Limits curriculum.
Pupils meet at the start and end of each half-term. They plan what they would like to achieve in the half-term, then review the progress. Additionally, pupils can reference this against the UNCRC rights, ensuring that their rights and the rights of others have been met throughout this process.
2) Forward As One 3 Step Approach to Pupil Leadership: Trust Primary Pledge, TPQL and Pupil Advisory Board. All of which can be found in more detail within the handbook below. Forward as One Pupil Leadership