Godolphin are the winners of the student voice award 2023! This is the second time that our school has won this national award and we could not be more proud of our whole school community.  

Godolphin are committed to student voice; we allow all our students to be listened to, heard and valued. 

GJA received some wonderful news in June 2021... GJA was the national winner of the primary school student voice award 2021!

This award recognises that as a school our pupils' voices are listened, heard and valued and that VFS is strong throughout our whole school. 

We are very proud of this achievement and our pupils. 

VFS Ambassadors

We are proud to announce that we have 4 of our VFS champions who are also our VFS ambassadors. 

These students meet with the VFS team and other VFS schools around the country and share their ideas on any upcoming topics, topics that they feel students would like to discuss and they will help run student webinars. 

Please click the VFS website link below.

Votes for Schools Blog Post Entries 

Godolphin provided an opportunity to our pupils for them to write a blog post to be published on Votes for Schools website and three of our students' entries were selected - a huge well done to Yasleen, Harleen and Fariah! We are all so proud!

Intent

At Godolphin, we believe that all students have a voice and have the right to be heard. Our Votes for Schools sessions allow students to be exposed to the everyday world around them through current topics, while being able to express their views, listen to other views and debate. These sessions instil the skills of being informed, being curious and being heard. These are skills that we believe our students should acquire for life.

Implementation

We dedicate one hour, every Friday morning, to Votes for Schools. Each week is a new topic based on recent events in the news or around a specific event, for example anti-bullying week.

At the start of each week, we inform parents of the new topic and provide some discussion points for them to have with their children before the lesson on a Friday.

Each session begins by looking back at previous results, from across the nation, and then introducing them to the new topic. The new topic is posed as a question for the students to form an opinion on as they learn about the topic throughout the lesson. They learn about differing viewpoints and have opportunities to practise their listening, speaking, oracy and diplomacy skills. At the end of every session, each pupil votes for whether they agree or disagree with the topic question, and supply their reasoning too. Every session promotes democracy and participation.

Our Votes for Schools sessions link to SMSC, British Values and Prevent Curriculum criteria, as well as ensuring individual progression. Every session indicates the direct links to these.

Impact

Having Votes for Schools at Godolphin ensures our students are knowledgeable about the world around them. They develop their general knowledge, confidence, speaking and listening skills and learn what it means to live in a democratic society. Our students have learnt these lifelong skills and can apply these to other subjects in school and the world beyond. Our students leave Godolphin as curious, independent learners and are knowledgeable of the wider world where they are able to articulate their thoughts clearly and concisely.

Impartiality Guidance

In February 2022, the Government issued guidance on schools legal duties regarding political impartiality. Votes for Schools have created an Impartiality Guidance document which outlines how Votes for Schools supports teachers in providing effective learning opportunities in line with the guidance.