St Columba’s has achieved the Investors in Pupils award. Below outlines what the Investors in Pupils award is and what we have done as a school to achieve the award.

Well done to Mrs McGovern and all who helped and worked hard to help us achieve this award!

The Investors in Pupils programme provides a unique pupil participation framework for all schools and education settings nationally. Investors in Pupils is a simple concept that builds on the principles of Investors in People, to empower all pupils, increase motivation and contribute to raising achievement across the Key Stages.

The programme offers schools a framework for involving pupils in decision making, and developing responsibility and leadership in relation to their learning, behaviour, attendance, classroom management and induction.

The Investors in Pupils award lasts for three years from the date of a successful assessment, and Ofsted inspection reports continue to acknowledge school achievement and the valuable contribution of Investors in Pupils.

Investors In Pupils Criteria

The Investors in Pupils criteria, as shown below, sets out what we as a school need to focus upon to achieve the award. The items listed on the criteria are what each child within school is focusing on and continuing to implement in everyday school life.

Our Actions in school

Our Investors in Pupils class vision statements

Each class have been introduced to what Investors in pupils means to our school.  We have discussed the ways in which we feel we can implement the ideology into our classes and each created a vision statement specific to our class.

We have all signed our statements and have them displayed with our class values.

Investors In Pupils Leaders

We are happy to introduce our Investors in Pupils leaders.

The leaders were chosen by Mrs McGovern, and their class teachers, to help deliver and support the Investors in Pupils aims and goals.

These leaders act as representatives within school to show and present the hard work that each class have completed on our way to Investors in Pupils success!

Class Induction booklets

Here are some of the induction booklets that we have created in each class.

We talked in our classes about the importance of ensuring everyone in class felt valued and included. We therefore decided to create booklets that outline what it means to be present in that class and how each and every class runs on a daily basis.

Attendance

At St Columba’s each and every child has begun to take responsibility for the attendance and their class attendance. We have implemented a child led attendance system as discussed and planned out by school council and our investors in pupils leaders.

Each day a nominated class attendance monitor takes the attendance numbers and percentages for that day and displays it on the door to the class.

At the end of the week the class with the highest attendance is awarded a golden trophy on the attendance display in the main corridor. The class is also presented with the attendance trophy to be proudly displayed in their class until the following week.

At the end of the half term, the class with the highest attendance are the half term winners and received a class prize to be decided upon within their own class.

It is important that we all strive to work together and attend school to help us achieve!

Pupil Voice

At St Columba's each and every pupil is as important to us as they are to God. 

In striving towards our Investors in Pupils award, we have created a pupil voice questionnaire alongside our school council.  The children thought about questions that they would like to ask the whole school and share their thoughts and opinions on what they enjoy in school and what they would like to improve.

We are currently awaiting the results and as soon as they are in we will share all the wonderful ideas and improvements that the children have come up with.

Please find a copy of our questionnaire and our results at the bottom of the page!

Our Targets

In school we have been learning about being responsible for our learning.  We have therefore developed personal targets that we strive to achieve in our learning each day.  It was important that each child developed their own target so it became personal to them.  Ask us about what our targets are and how we are doing in achieving them.

We also have whole class targets and here is an example of what we have in class below.

Pupil Roles and Responsibilities

Each class have displayed the roles and responsibilities that are present within their classroom.  Roles within class are very important to ensure that children feel valued and that the class works together to look after their classroom and develop their learning environment.

In Year 3, roles that are held involve pencil pot monitors, Cloakroom monitors and book monitors alongside whole school roles such as school councillors and Eco councillors.

Financial Understanding

As part of our understanding of the daily running of school, we have been looking at budgets and how school spends money.

Our investors in pupils team met with Lana, our head of finance leader, to discuss areas such as school allowances, what we spend money on and what area do we spend the most amount of money on!

In class children in KS2 have been setting up their own imaginary school and working with a budget to see if they could run a successful school like our own!

In KS1, the children have been creating posters about the importance of looking after our resources to save money and ensure we are being cost effective!