Pupil Leadership

At Lamberhurst St Mary's, we believe that children should have meaningful opportunities to lead, contribute and make a difference to their school and wider community.

Pupil leadership is an important part of school life. Through a range of roles and responsibilities, children are encouraged to share their ideas, represent the views of others and take an active role in shaping our school. These opportunities help pupils to develop confidence, responsibility, teamwork and an understanding that their voice matters.

House Captains

Every child belongs to one of our five school houses:

Bodiam • Leeds • Hever • Scotney • Tonbridge

Our houses are named after castles in our local area and were originally chosen by pupils through a whole-school vote. Children join a house when they start at Lamberhurst St Mary's, with siblings remaining in the same house.

The house system brings children of different ages together and creates a strong sense of belonging across the school. Our Year 6 House Captains help to lead and represent their houses and act as positive role models for younger pupils.

Children earn house points throughout the school year for demonstrating our school values and making positive contributions to school life. This includes kindness, effort, teamwork, positive attitudes to learning and excellent behaviour.

House points are celebrated regularly, with children working collectively towards rewards for their house. These rewards provide further opportunities for pupils of different ages to come together, work as a team and celebrate their achievements.

 PUPIL GOVERNORS

Our Pupil Governors play an important role in ensuring that pupils have a genuine voice in the development of our school.

How Our Pupil Governors Are Chosen

Two pupils from each year group serve as Pupil Governors at a time. Each group holds office for half of the academic year, giving more children the opportunity to take on this important leadership role during their time at school.

Pupil Governors are elected by their peers. Children who would like to stand for the role prepare and deliver a child-friendly manifesto, sharing why they would make a good Pupil Governor and the ideas they would like to represent. Their classmates then vote to choose the pupils they would like to represent them.

This process helps children experience democracy in action and understand the responsibility that comes with representing the views of others.

Pupil Governors gather views from children across the school, bring forward ideas and suggestions, and meet with staff and other members of our community to discuss areas of school life. Their role is not simply to talk about what pupils would like; we want children to see that thoughtful pupil voice can lead to real action and change.

They are expected to listen carefully to others, represent different viewpoints and communicate their classmates' ideas respectfully and confidently.

Pupil Governors Making a Difference in 2026 - 2027

Our newly elected Pupil Governors have already begun their work for 2026/27. Their first task is to gather pupil views from across the school on the proposed changes to the school day, ensuring that children's experiences and opinions form part of the information considered by governors.

Pupil Governors Making a Difference in 2025 - 2026

Last academic year our pupil governors made a huge impact in multiple areas of our school:

Improving school lunches: Pupil Governors gathered feedback from every class about school dinners, including what children enjoyed and ideas for improvement. They then met with our school cook to present the views of their peers, helping to inform future menu choices.

Shaping rewards: Pupil Governors gathered the views of their peers about the rewards they would most value on Mrs Vickery-Booth's Spin the Wheel reward. Their feedback helped to shape the choices on the wheel so that rewards reflected what children across the school actually wanted and enjoyed.

Supporting school improvement: Pupil Governors have gathered pupil voice about what children value most about their school - our 'treasures' - as well as the 'tweaks' they would like to make. This has given school leaders a clearer picture of what school feels like from a child's perspective and has helped to inform areas for ongoing improvement.

Improving our playground: Pupil Governors gathered children's views about playground provision and the equipment they would like to have available. These ideas contributed to decisions about new playground equipment and improvements to our outdoor spaces.

Influencing the Scotney Castle play area: KS2 Pupil Governors, alongside Eco Warriors, contributed ideas to plans for a new play area at Scotney Castle. Pupils reviewed proposals, shared further suggestions and saw their earlier ideas reflected in the developing designs.

Representing pupil voice: Pupil Governors regularly speak with children across the school, gather a range of views and bring these to staff and leaders. This ensures that pupil voice is not a one-off activity, but an ongoing part of how we reflect on and develop our school.

.

ECO Warriors

Our Eco Warriors help lead our work on looking after the environment and making our school more sustainable.

They meet to identify practical changes we can make as a school and then help to put those ideas into action. They also speak to other pupils about why these changes matter and how everyone can play their part.

Eco Warriors Making a Difference 

Last year, our Eco Warriors have:

• Created and placed reminder signs around school near lights, computers and other electrical equipment to encourage everyone to switch items off when they are not being used

• Spoken to classes about recycling, helping children understand what can be recycled and why it is important

• Helped the school to improve recycling by identifying where additional bins were needed and supporting the introduction of new recycling bins

• Worked alongside Pupil Governors and Scotney Castle to contribute ideas linked to outdoor spaces and the local environment

• Litter picking in the school and local community

These actions have helped make environmental responsibility more visible across the school and have given pupils a genuine role in influencing how we reduce waste and energy use.

We are looking forward to seeing what the future brings for sustainability at Lamberhurst St Mary’s, and to seeing the impact our pupils can continue to have in driving positive whole-school change.