Alpington Parliament
At Alpington we are always looking for new and creative ways to “Let our Lights Shine” and enable others to shine too. Alpington Parliament at our school makes sure that all the children in our school have a voice and can contribute ideas and practical solutions to make our school an ever better place to learn and work.
In the summer of 2024, alongside the rest of the country, Alpington held a general election. Through a series of whole school meetings, we devised 4 “parties”, each based on one of our Alpington Values. The children worked together to publish a simple manifesto for each party.
We held a series of debates so that all the children understood the policies on offer. We explored which ideas were the most important and why. We did not always agree, but we learnt to express our opinions and back them up with evidence, to listen carefully to each other, to change our minds and to respect each other when we didn’t agree.
Every child registered to vote. On election day, we held a secret ballot. Our year 6 children were out at a transition day to high school and so they had to register for and complete a postal ballot! When all the votes were counted and verified, the Aspirational Party had the most votes, followed by the Eco party.
It is the job of Alpington Parliament to implement the policies we voted for.
Class parliaments meet on week one. They have an issue to discuss. Each class comes up with a proposal to solve the problem. The following week whole school parliament meets. Children from each class take turns to present their proposals and we hold a debate to consider the merits of each. At the end we vote on the proposal we would like to implement.
So far we have voted for a new class based system to organise the play shed, a new friendship shelter which we have designed and painted ourselves,
New recycling bins for the playground and litter pickers. We have also organised our first “You Choose Day”. You can see this in action on the events page of our website.
