Courageous Advocacy
At Parish Church of England Primary School, our pupils experience many different types of courageous advocacy, that will empower them to make a difference.
1.) Awareness Raising and Community Influencing - Gifts of Gold:
Each class has their own charity (a 'Gift of Gold') which they champion and support throughout the academic year. These are primarily local charities but significantly, all of which have a direct impact on our wider school community. Awareness raising for our 'Gift of Gold' usually takes place on our termly 'Faith, Hope and Love' days with children empowered to develop their own and other's understanding of their charity. Rather than just raising money, children also consider ideas to raise awareness with the ultimate aim of persuading people to support their chairty and make a sustained change right across our school community.
Each year, Y5 also take part in the Young Leaders Award (YLA) as a fully resourced leadership and character education programme designed to be delivered by teaching staff within the classroom. https://www.archbishopofyorkyouthtrust.co.uk/young-leaders-award
2.) Lifestyle Changes and Consumer Power - Rainbow Leaders:
In our school, every child from Year 1 to Year 6 is a member of a Pupil Leadership Group. These groups ensure that every child's voice is heard and empower children to make our school a better place. One example includes our Creation-Champions who were unhappy at the single-use plastic bags being used to bring things into school and successfully campaigned for all children to be provided with a book bag and P.E bag upon starting school.
3.) Lifestyle Changes - Our Trust Charity:
New Hope School and Orphanage in Kampala, Uganda, is a non profit making charity established in 2005 with the purpose of transforming the lives of disadvantaged children and young people in Uganda. The aim is to provide a safe and caring environment, where they will be nurtured, educated, helped to achieve their potential in life and so equipped to build a better future for themselves. With the help of fundraising and child sponsorship, the school has grown from initially supporting 50 children in 2005, to currently having 810 pupils on the register with nearly half of the children and young people living in the school too. Many of the young people have been abandoned and in some cases had witnessed their parents killed in ethnic genocide or dying due to HIV/Aids.
Staff at LDST have been involved with fundraising and child sponsorship at New Hope for many years and in February 2023, three LDST members of staff travelled out to New Hope to support the staff and children.
Schools across our Trust are involved with fundraising for New Hope, helping to make sure that the children have resources, food and medical supplies.
4.) Incidental Acts of Courageous Advocacy:
As a school, we also complete different incidental acts of courageous advocacy across the year in line with the Christian Calendar. This includes our 'Kindness Calendar' for advent:
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