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.
Alpington Parliament Update
Spring Term update 2026
Plastic plan update
A massive thank you to everyone for their plastic free snack efforts! We have reduced our snack time plastic to practically 0!! Keep it up everyone!
Norfolk County Council have responded to our request for additional food caddies and these are on their way! They have also offered to come and meet with Alpington Parliament and talk about other ways to reduce our waste.
Thank you to Ruby, Aisling and Hattie in Swallows class who wrote to Norse about plastic waste in school lunches. Our sandwiches are now plastic wrapper free. Once the sauce sachets currently in stock are used up, we will move to big plastic bottles.
Alpington Parliament has achieved a huge amount this week, for our local environment and towards a big global problem. As Greta Thunberg said, no one is too small to make a difference!
What’s the problem with Plastic?
Every class held a debate about the problems with single use plastic. Swallows saw a video about the impact of plastic on sea birds which really made them think. Kingfishers talked about problems with landfill and how all the plastic wrappers we use will still be around in hundreds of years. We learnt that the impact of plastic wrappers ( sometimes called “single use plastic”) is not always easy to see around us, but is affecting people and animals across the world.
We talked about Greta Thunberg’s words “no one is too small to make a difference.” We said that our decisions make a difference:
- To us and our local environment – less litter and our local animals are safe
- To the wider world – lots of people making a little difference can add up to a big difference.
- Because it sets an example – to each other, to our friends and family and to other schools. It tells people that we think that the environment is important for everyone’s future!
We have decided to take action! Here is our action plan.
1 – No more plastic wrappers at snack time. Bring a reusable pot for your snack or have fruit or vegetables. There will be fruit or veg available for KS2 children in school.
2 – Write to Norse asking them to reduce the plastic packaging for school lunches by not wrapping sandwiches and having big bottles of ketchup and mayo.
3 – Have a food waste bin for fruit and vegetable peel / leftovers so these don’t go into landfill.
4 – make posters and write in the newsletter to ask for our parents help and support.
5 – create some “swap this for this” or “try this instead” menus for ideas for wrapper free snacks.
We also had lots of ideas for reducing the packaging in packed lunches!
Flyer plastic free reduce single use plastics in lunch boxes
Playground safety plans
Each class took a particular area of the playground and thought carefully about how it could best be used so that:
- We are all safe
- Everyone can have a happy playtime!
We shared our ideas with Alpington Parliament and made posters which are up around our outside space. Thank you everyone for your lovely ideas.
You Choose day November 2025
Alpington Parliament did an amazing job organising our second annual “You Choose day” in November. There were a great range of activities on offer, from arts and crafts to music, book making, gardening and indoor and outdoor sports. All the children chose what they wanted to do and as always it was amazing to see children all working together.
This is a video of our day.
Spring Term updates 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.