Pupil Voice
At Shoscombe Church School, we believe that for a child to truly ‘shine,’ they must first find their voice. Guided by our vision of 'life in all its fullness,' we don't just teach our pupils about the world—we empower them to shape it. From our restorative approach to our Voice 21 Oracy work, we provide the tools and the 'brave spaces' our children need to articulate their feelings, advocate for others, and lead with wisdom and grace
🤝 Leadership through our Houses and Teams
Leadership and representation are built into the very fabric of our school. Every child at Shoscombe is a member of a House, and each House elects three House Captains to lead their peers. To ensure every child has a say in how our school grows, we have established three dedicated Pupil Voice Teams. A representative from each House sits on each of these teams, ensuring that every corner of our school community is heard.
As highlighted in our school illustration, each of these teams is representative of a core value. Our Eco Team champions the value of Responsibility as they look after our local environment. Our School Librarians represent Wisdom, fostering a love of learning and stories across the school. Finally, our Sports Leads embody Dignity and Respect, promoting fair play and healthy lives. These roles ensure that leadership isn’t just a title, but a way for pupils to live out our values through structured talk and collaborative decision-making.
📢 Courageous Advocacy: Life in All Its Fullness
Our vision translates ethical choices into tangible action, empowering our pupils to be true agents of change. We believe that “shining” means looking outward at how we can help others. Beyond our Safer Roads Project and the School Council’s collaboration with the local parish, our older pupils are increasingly initiating their own advocacy.
This year, a school-wide focus on protecting Wellow Brooke saw pupils actively engaging with the democratic process. During Parliament Week, students used the skills developed through our Voice 21 Oracy project to challenge and speak out to our local MP, demonstrating a sophisticated understanding of how to use their voice for environmental justice. This “fullness of life” is most evident when pupils act “off their own back,” such as a recent group of Year 4 children who independently organized a fundraiser, raising £260 for a turtle and sloth charity. Through our e-twinning projects, pupils also exercise agency by researching and selecting the global charities they wish to support, ensuring their fundraising is rooted in a genuine, self-identified concern for global injustice.
❤️ A Relational Approach: Finding Our Voice
For a child to change the world, they must first feel safe and confident enough to speak their mind. Our Relational Policy is the foundation of this confidence. We believe that behaviour is a form of communication; by replacing punitive measures with unwavering belonging and restorative practice, we create a “brave space” where children are explicitly taught to articulate how they are feeling and share their worries.
This is where our commitment to Voice 21 and the Oracy Framework becomes vital. We don’t just tell children to speak up; we teach them the physical, linguistic, cognitive, and social-emotional skills to do so effectively. Whether it is a personal worry or a “pupil-shared issue” brought up in collective worship, our pupils use Talk Tactics and Sentence Stems to express themselves with clarity and purpose. By formalizsing how we record these concerns, we ensure the evolution of our children’s social conscience directly drives our school’s advocacy agenda—ensuring that at Shoscombe, every voice has the power to shine.
