School Parliament

At King Charles School, the views and feelings of our pupils is important to us and one of the ways in which they can share these with the rest of the school and lead on some key aspects of school life is through our School Council and our School Parliament.

School Council

Our School Council consists of representatives from each class in our school from Year 1-5. These pupils are nominated and voted for by their peers and then attend regular meetings with Mrs Coles. This is an important part of the Council as pupils experience democracy first-hand.

At each meeting, there is a clear agenda and elected leaders of the council lead the meetings and take the minutes. The agenda can include items that members of staff want to share with the Council, and this can include ‘tasks’ where the Council members will seek out the views and opinions of their peers. Recent work in this area has included pupil views about purchasing of equipment and arrangements for lunchtime. This research was used to create a display and inform decisions about what’s working well and what might need to change. Another important part of School Council is linking to our community, so they will attend special events and represent our school, as well as fundraising to support many worthy causes.

With issues like this, our School Council have made a difference across our school and in our community and they work collaboratively with our School Parliament.

School Parliament

School Parliament consists of Year 6 pupils who are democratically elected to be:

Members of Parliament, who represent each area of learning; a Speaker of the House; Treasurer; Leader of the Opposition and Prime Minister. Our School Parliament meets once a term and discusses and votes on the issues that pupils feel are important enough to promote real change in our school community. Pupil Voice is essential in these meetings, and every child gets to vote, from Reception to Year 6.

Residential Opportunities

At King Charles we pride ourselves on the opportunities we provide to our pupils through our residential visits.

Residentials, whether near or far, seek to use the outdoor environment as a vehicle for transforming the experience into knowledge, skills, attitudes and behaviours.

Each year we are delighted to offer three very different residential opportunities for pupils in Years 4, 5 and 6. more details about each offer is below: through these we aim to ensure the following core outcomes:

*Enjoyment *Build Confidence and Character *Develop Health and Well-being *Enhance Social and Emotional Awareness *Grow an Awareness of our Environment *Provide Physical Activities *Build Personal Qualities *Develop Skills for Life *Increase Motivation and Appetite for Learning *Broaden Horizons
 

Below, you will see what is ordinarily offered and we hope to be able to return to this for the 2021/22 academic year.

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Year 4 – Watersports And Sleepover 1 Night Residential

Our pupils in Year 4 are offered the opportunity to take part in our ‘Watersports and Sleepover’ residential. Spread over two days, pupils will have two full days of watersports and water skills delivered by Elemental on Swanpool beach. On the first evening, pupils will return to school for a cooked evening meal, games and activities and then a film night in the hall in their sleeping bags!

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Year 5 – Adventure Okehampton Outdoor Pursuits 2 Night Residential

Our Year 5 pupils are offered the opportunity to take part in our ‘Outdoor Pursuits’ residential. Spending two nights in a YHA hostel on the edge of Dartmoor, pupils will experience kayaking, mountain biking, climbing, archery and high-ropes. During the evening, the pupils will enjoy circus skills and team games. This residential takes place during the summer term.

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Year 6 – City Break 2 Night Residential

Year 6 pupils are afforded the opportunity to visit our capital city during the summer. During their visit, pupils will travel from Cornwall in executive coach to our hotel just outside of the capital. Over the three-day trip we will enjoy a theatre experience, a boat trip on the Thames, visits to museums and also a visit to the Harry Potter experience!

King Charles Together (KCT) Time!

At King Charles we love being together. Our core values of friendship and teamwork reflect just how important this is to us and KCT Time is a time that enables us to live this out.

KCT Time is a dedicated time in our school calendar where, each half term, we come together in KCT Time groups with a range of year groups coming together to learn, reflect and play. Through KCT Time we can show off our teamwork abilities, develop friendships and use our creativity skills – a time that truly embraces three of our core values.

Our KCT Groups Are Named After Local Beaches In Our Community

During Our Time Together We Have Enjoyed Some Of The Following:

• creating our school’s Christmas decorations which all included a message of thanks or hope
• producing whole-school pieces of art – showing off our creativity skills
• playing teamwork games to develop communication and problem-solving
• creating pieces of art to celebrate Easter
• taking time to reflect spiritually outside

KC Classroom Culture

At King Charles School, we know that a strong, positive classroom culture ensures that we're ready to learn and supports children’s social and emotional needs and development. Children thrive in a community where everyone contributes and everyone is valued - where everyone shines!

At King Charles we have thought carefully about what this looks like and what we expect from all members of the class: adults and pupils alike.  We ensure that expectations are clear and that it's a place where our values of teamwork, friendship, achievement, aspiration and creativity can be lived out.

A purposeful classroom culture teaches children the social-emotional skills they need to succeed in the world – in and out of school. These skills include understanding and managing emotions, setting and achieving goals, feeling and showing empathy for others, maintaining positive relationships, and making responsible decisions.

We encourage resilience towards all we do in school (and life) and enable our classrooms to be spaces where making mistakes is fine and we're not afraid to make them.

Here are some of the ways in which we ensure this in our school...

Good behaviour is essential to a positive environment in which we can all learn.  Across our school, we expect our pupils to use Marvellous Manners and we recognise this with praise, rewards and special stickers!   

Marvellous Manners

 Our whole approach to encouraging good behaviour is underpinned by our Golden Rules.  Within each class, there is a 'class charter' which pupils help to create each year; the charters show what our rules look like in action in our classrooms.

 Speaking and Listening skills are not just skills for the classroom, they are skills for life.  We all know that listening carefully helps us learn and that speaking well helps us explain our learning and ask questions.  To support our pupils, we make it clear exactly what good speaking and listening look like.  

We support our pupils to be in a calm, ready and alert state for learning by using the Zones of Regulation to talk about how we're feeling.

Using the language of the Zones of Regulation, we can support our pupils' emotional literacy - how they are able to talk about, recognise and explain how they, and others, feel.  

Each classroom has a dedicated space and display that we can refer to when talking about feelings and where we can find resources to help us move from one zone to another.

 

Ex-Days!

As part of our commitment to our core values of ‘creativity’, ‘friendship’ and ‘teamwork’ we are proud of this innovative way of delivering part of our curriculum. Every two weeks, pupils will experience activities in each year group from Years 1 through to 6 in this exciting way – Ex- days!

These fortnightly activity days are a creative way of enabling our children to experience their studies in a really active and dynamic way; they experience extra special activities to enrich and enhance their curriculum.

We have named these ‘ex days’ as their focus can be on any of the following ….. expeditions, exercise, exciting adventures, expressive arts, experiential learning, exploring the wider world, becoming an expert, carrying out experiments, or extending existing studies, skills and interests.

Our ex team, who carefully plan and prepare these days have really enjoy delivering these activities across the school and we all love the feedback from our pupils and parents. Each year, feedback from our pupils informs our next sequences of learning and some highlights of the coming year are shown below.

Click on the link to find out more about our intent, how we implement our ex-day learning and the impact of these on our pupils and school.

Some Of The Topics We Will Explore This Year Will Be:

Ambassadors and Helpers

At King Charles we are incredibly proud of our pupils and the ways in which they rise to challenges and are always so helpful! They’re always ready to lend a hand and support others.

In Year 6, our pupils enjoy the roles of ‘Ambassadors’ where they help with a range of things across the school. We’re also so thankful for our Office Helpers who diligently arrive at the office to help with jobs that the Admin Team might have.

Every child in Year 6 takes on the role of an Ambassador and this ‘job’ sees them as a role model and shining example of what makes our school so special.

Under the umbrella of three of our core values of ‘Achievement‘, ‘Teamwork‘ and ‘Friendship‘ our Year 6 pupils take on a leading role (one per term) in supporting our whole school community in a range of ways including learning, creativity, sport, play and reaching into the school and wider communities.

Visit this area of our school website to find out more about the things our Ambassadors have been up to!