Wellbeing in Primary: New Year, New Student Council

WELLBEING IN PRIMARY: NEW YEAR, NEW STUDENT COUNCIL, FANTASTIC NEW INITIATIVES

Every child’s voice is important and fundamental in making positive change around the school.

This year our vision for PSHE (Personal, Social, Health and Economic education) in Primary is to further develop student voice.

At BIS Hanoi, we want to empower our students to lead and provide opportunities for students to directly impact school life. We strongly believe that all children should feel valued, engaged in school events, and have the confidence to voice their own opinions.

This term, we relaunched the Student Council with a special assembly in which last year’s Student Council shared a clear message: that every child’s voice is important and fundamental in making positive change around the school.

To apply to become a Student Council representative for their class, children were asked to prepare a speech or presentation outlining the skills they would bring to the role, such as: leadership, communication, collaboration, listening and respect. They also shared what inspired them to take

up this challenge, as well as their vision; identifying things they would like to change around the school. After class elections, the 19 successful candidates from Years 2-6 were announced in assembly.

Since being elected, our brilliant Student Council has been extremely busy! The team began by discussing which key areas of the school they would like to improve and reporting back to their classes. The whole of Primary then voted on which area the Student Council should focus on first, with the majority choosing the playground.

In response to this, Student Council members shared a document with their classes to gather ideas about new equipment which might enrich the indoor and outdoor playground areas. The next steps for the Student Council team will be to decide which equipment to purchase and, later, to teach their peers how to look after it properly.

Members of the Student Council were also instrumental in organising our assembly for World Children’s Day, as well as contributing to the first House Lunch of the year by setting up playground games for the children.

I am extremely proud of the achievements of the Student Council this term - and look forward to working with them throughout the rest of this year. They have big plans!

Aaron Watkins Year 5 Teacher