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.
Spring term 2025
Alpington Parliament have been really busy this term.
The children voted for a new performance area on the playground for dance a drama. Thank you to Robins class for ordering a speaker and dance resources and to Mrs Godbold’s team for painting the tyres. Parliament voted for each class to take a turn for the week and every class has had a turn this half term.
The children have also voted for a play fort or pirate ship to replace our trim trail. This is going to cost a lot of money, so the children have been coming up with different fund raising ideas. At half term they took part in “Alpington Unplugged”, raising a whopping £1600! Alpington’s got Talent is taking place on Friday – tickets are on sale and there will be a café – all proceeds to the Alpington Active campaign!
Alpington Parliament has also been voting in response to a letter from Kingfishers class to persuade us all to take action to protect our environment. The children were really clear that small actions taken at Alpington could become big actions globally.
Owls class have been promoting healthy snacks and recyclable packaging
Robins class have been turning off lights and computers
Kingfishers class have been reminding drivers to turn off their engines when they are stationary.
Watch out for a new project to encourage us to walk to school from Swallows class after the holiday.
Most recently we have been thinking about fairness – what could make our school fairer? What could make the world a fairer place?
Parliament voted to create a suggestions box to go outside Mrs Welch’s office so that she can help to sort out issues where children think it has not been dealt with fairly.
Kingfishers class suggested that children in year 2 should have access to the Robins class monkey bars. However it was decided that this was not necessary as they would be able to use the KS2 bars when they were in year 3 and this was the same for everyone. Thank you for your suggestion Kingfishers.
