Talk Ambassadors (Our pupil voice)

School Talk Ambassadors

The Talk Ambassadors are a group of pupils from Years 2 to 6 who have been selected by our teachers to represent the views of each class.  There is one Ambassador representing every class.  We are called Talk Ambassadors because we realise how important it is to be able to talk clearly to the other children in our classes to encourage them to share their views on life in school with us so that their voices are heard and the adults take into account their ideas.

We recognise that being a Talk Ambassador is a great privilege and know that we must be good role models at all times so that the pupils and the staff respect us and trust us to communicate pupils’ views accurately and sensibly.

Being a Talk Ambassador has helped all of us to grow in self-confidence through talking to pupils and adults in our school, and to adults and pupils in other schools and in the wider community. We are learning lots of skills which we will need when we become adults.

Over the last few years the work of the Talk Ambassadors has contributed to:

• the design of lunch time menus;
• the type of after-school clubs run;
• the choice of playground equipment purchased;
• the choosing of new books for school;
• the design of new Year Group Libraries;
• the promotion of reading across school;
• the selling of poppies for the Royal British Legion Poppy Appeal;
• better understanding of what makes doing homework difficult;
• improving the way homework is set in school to make it more engaging;
• improved health and safety on the playground at break and lunch times;
• improvements to the lunchtime dining hall experience;
• a cleaner outdoor environment through the purchase of bins and highlighting litter issues;
• a review of tuck sold in the tuck shop to promote healthy snacks and the drinking of water;
• promoting good manners across school.

A Recent Project

We were involved in a project to create new Year Group Libraries in school. 

This involved us in

• finding out what sort of books children in school like to read, which authors, which genres and the subject-matter of their favourite books;
• spending a whole day in a bookshop in Birmingham choosing books which we thought the children would enjoy reading from a selection of 36,000 titles!  We eventually chose 2000 new books.
• finding out about new authors we had never come across before and deciding whether to buy their books for school.

When all the new furniture arrives and the Year Group Libraries are created, we are so looking forward to helping to fill the new shelves with all the new books purchased with the help of lots of other children and the parents from Friends of Arden. 

We really hope you will watch this space for the next exciting developments as there will be photographs of all the new Year Group Libraries and book areas across school!