Listening to our Children
Carlton Road Academy uses a range of ways to listen to and “hear” our children’s voices.
This enables us to take their views into account when planning or evaluating life in school.
This could be through:
- The Pupil Parliament – an elected group who share ideas and plan events with the PSHE leader, cascading ideas back to class or bringing class ideas to the parliament meetings.
- Class discussions and assemblies, particularly around 'Picture News' when topical matters are debated.
- Sharing of views with their teachers and class team
- Surveys or questionnaires
- Conversations with the Trust senior leaders as part of School Reviews
- Conversations with the school leadership team as part of their monitoring such as safeguarding.
BIG Conversations
These are when the children in either classes or cross-school "Committees" discuss aspects of school life.
In recent times we have used BIG conversations to talk about school values, our curriculum and school rules.
Subject leaders use them to meet with pupil groups from across the age ranges to obtain feedback on the delivery of their subject as part of their monitoring process, to share viewpoints and seek new ideas.
School Surveys
The school undertakes safeguarding surveys to ensure that our children are aware of how to stay safe both in school, outside and online. Older children answer independently; teachers conduct conversations to give group responses for the younger pupils.
Recently, we have used an online tool to hear our children's responses. Some answers were scored 1-5 from lowest to very high. Our safety score from the children was 4.49.
We use the results from such surveys to shape safeguarding practice and provide training and support for children and parents.
