The Power of Voice
The concept of student voice in our BVIS context, refers to the expression of values, opinions and perspectives by individuals or groups of students within our school and the subsequent actions in response to them. Listening to and acting on student preferences, helps our students to feel invested and can ignite their passions, building up their persistence. As a result of feeling empowered by ‘student voice’, they experience self-worth, engagement and purpose in school. So, one of the questions that we shall be asking our children this term is, “If you were to think of class rewards as you reach House point number thresholds, what would they look like?”
Taking this idea of student voice a little further, at BVIS we have now elected our Student Councillors from Years 2 to Year 6, who will channel the ideas and opinions of all of our students to the ‘listening ears’ of our school management team. By proactively modelling the process of listening, not only do we encourage the engagement of students in decision making processes, but we teach them how to listen to the thoughts and suggestions of others, developing their skills of collaboration and tolerance.
In their role as Student Councillors, the children are increasing their self-confidence, developing their listening skills in terms of respecting the views of others and improving their ability to articulate the thoughts of their peers.
We are proud of the work that our Student Councillors do and congratulate them on their election, which was ultimately in response to ‘Student Voice’.
We are Green
Though not literally green, our staff and students at BVIS fully understand the importance of Environmental Education, the goals of which are:
“To provide every person with opportunities to acquire the knowledge, values, attitudes, commitment, and skills needed to protect and improve the environment; to create new patterns of behavior of individuals, groups, and society as a whole towards the environment.”
Our newly elected ‘EcoWarriors’ have chosen to undertake the task of increasing community awareness around global environmental issues and motivating us to tackle some of these within a classroom and school context. They need to find ways to engage all stakeholders and improve their attitudes, cultivating a mindset of environmentally responsible behaviour patterns.
Their first hurdle is to develop a Primary school ‘Eco Code’, creating a vision of what a ‘Green BVIS Primary’ should look like based on research, a school audit and the feedback they receive from their peers. This is a tremendous opportunity for our students to develop skills of collaboration, organisation, empathy and respect.
I Congratulate our EcoWarriors on their recent appointments and look forward to witnessing their journey over this year in line with our motto: “Be Ambitious”.
