Our children thrive on being responsible, trustworthy and dedicated individuals. They love to take on responsibilities and lead by example. Many of these roles involve children giving up a little of their own time, usually during playtimes, and this is something which they love to do as they relish supporting and enthusing others socially and academically. Children all take on leadership roles within their classrooms, in addition to the roles outlined below …
Playground Leaders
Our school is extremely lucky to have some brilliant Playground Leaders. At lunch time their role is to initiate games with KS1 and KS2 children. They help the Lunchtime Supervisors make our dinner times fun and enjoyable. They organise playground games and activities for the pupils to participate in and work together to think of new, exciting activities for lunchtimes. They receive training to lead younger pupils in structured, fun games. When children are actively engaged in activities behaviour improves and the playground is a fun and harmonious place to be. The Playground Leaders are taught skills such as communication, fair play, organising groups/teams and the STEP principle (Space, Task, Equipment, People).
Reading Ambassadors
At Hillside, we have a number of children who have volunteered to be a reading ambassador. A reading ambassador is when an older child, from year 5, pairs up with a younger child to support them with their reading. This allows the older child to be a positive role model for the younger child; to help model good reading; increase each other’s’ self-esteem and to develop a love of reading. This partnership has been running for over five years in school and all children involved benefit. The year 5 children read at least twice a week with their partner and this role has evolved during the current academic year with buddies reading to the whole class or practising spellings and common exception words with groups or individuals. The reading ambassadors also supervise the use of the reading and writing boxes at lunch times. Boxes of reading books, writing resources, white boards and even outdoor bean bags (to keep the children comfy) are used on both KS1 and KS2 playgrounds. The reading ambassadors help to organise the use of the boxes each day and all year groups enjoy an additional activity at lunch time that helps to support their reading and writing skills.
Science Ambassadors
At Hillside, we have a team of Year 6 Science ambassadors, who, once a week during lunchtime, plan and carry out an exciting range of scientific experiments and investigations for the Key Stage One children to become involved in. These experiences can range from exploding volcanoes to making vehicles travel across the playground. The ambassadors do a brilliant job of developing the scientific minds of our younger children, enthusing their enquiry skills, observation skills and allowing them to ask questions of the world around them.
Maths Ambassadors
Our maths ambassadors’ main priority is to promote positive attitudes towards mathematics and they do this by running regular assemblies, challenging negative responses towards maths and organising and running exciting events in school such Times Table Rock Stars battles, number days and year group challenges. The maths ambassadors support the staff in making the teaching of maths the best it can be and are the voice of the pupils. Regular meetings are held fortnightly and play an integral part in the decisions that we make as a school around mathematics. We are so glad to have such enthusiastic and dedicated children to promote numeracy for life at Hillside.
Sports Leaders
This is a responsibility given to a group of Year 6 pupils who take an active interest in sport and become ambassadors for sport. These children support, plan and organise a range of sporting activities, developing their leadership skills. They particularly enjoy supporting out ‘Games day’ and our school sports days.
Hillside eSafety Leaders
eSafety Leaders is a pupil led programme that teaches children how to stay safe online. Each term our eSafety Leaders are set challenges through which they learn new online skills and share their knowledge with the children in their class. We have chosen two eSafety Leaders from each Key Stage 2 class. They work with Mr Mellor once a week to complete their challenges and plan activities for their class.
Librarians
We have a dedicated team of librarians that work extremely hard to ensure that our school library is well used, organised and supplied with the latest books to engage the children at Hillside. Our trained librarians not only assist children in selecting books and ensure this area is kept tidy and well organised, they also run shared reading sessions; termly competitions and promote and nurture a love of reading across the school.
Head Boy & Head Girl
Being the Head Boy/Head girl at Hillside is a very important role because you have to be an inspirational role model to everybody else. Their duties include representing Hillside at various events, welcoming visitors to the school and showing them around, attending meetings with the school council and helping out around the school. The Head Boy and Head Girl are appointed for their caring, respectful, hardworking, inspirational qualities. They are ambassadors for the school, who hold and show- on a daily basis the values we uphold.