At Willoughby Road, we want all of our pupils to become the very best people they can be. We want them to: become well-rounded, knowledgeable citizens who are as well prepared as possible for life ahead; recognise and celebrate their own uniqueness and that of others; be proud of who they are; confidently communicate their knowledge, views and dreams effectively. Our personal development offer and personal, social and health education curriculum provide opportunities and learning to help our pupils achieve these ambitions. Our offer opens up a wide range of opportunities, experiences and activities that pupils can take part and achieve in, that will help them to gather opinions about, and make informed choices about, the world around them.

We prepare our pupils for the wider world and value their contributions to our community. Through a democratic voting process, pupils select from their peers each year and leadership teams are formed, with members from every year group in Key Stage 1 and Key Stage 2. In Nursery and Reception, pupils are given opportunity to develop their leadership skills by undertaking roles of responsibility in the classroom.

The School Council take their roles very seriously and enjoy regular meetings with Miss Blades-Baker, Head of Academy, to share their views on how we can make our Academy the best it can be. Throughout the year, they organise many fundraising and celebratory events including the introduction of the WR Kindness Cup which is awarded termly. They have also surveyed pupils and parents on their views of our school lunches!

Our ECO-Warriors have had a busy time working to make Willoughby Road a ‘greener’ place for us all. They have already organised a number of ‘green’ initiatives including Turn Off the Light reminders across school, a Great Big Litter Pick and Walk to School Week!

We all know how important it is to attend school every day and our Attendance Ambassadors do a great job of rewarding pupils and planning events to incentivise regular attendance in school. The Attendance Ambassadors work alongside our Attendance Team to make sure everyone has the best attendance possible. Look at the reward systems that were developed through pupil voice to celebrate weekly, half termly, termly and annually!

The Attendance Ambassadors love planning events to promote good attendance and pupils love taking part too! We share news of our events and photographs of our celebrations in our weekly newsletter.

World Book Day was one of the most exciting events in the school diary for our Reading Ambassadors! They organised a series of ‘Stay and Read’ sessions for parents and carers to come and share a book with pupils in school; a fancy dress day where pupils came to school dressed as their favourite book characters or with an item to represent the character; introduced ‘book barrows’ to the playground and shared a poem a day in preparation for our Paul Cookson visit. They felt very privileged to take part in their own writing session as a thank you for all of their hard work! Performing poems? Don’t mind if we do!

Our Writing Ambassadors have embraced every element of their role this year with competitions for Spooky Story Writing, Poems and a Whole School book of excellent writing. They especially enjoyed their very own workshop with Paul Cookson, the poet, when he visited Willoughby Road.

Our Maths Ambassadors love Maths! If they are not in their lessons learning how to complete challenge, they are collaborating on their next whole school challenge for their peers! Look our for our Timetable Titans with their special times table pencils when you visit classrooms.

Our high expectations of ‘Green’ behaviour don’t pause when we finish our learning in the classroom! Our Lunchtime Leaders support the Lunchtime Staff Team with rewarding green points, ensuring the hall remains a pleasant dining experience and lead games for our younger pupils. Each week, pupils are nominated to be Lunchtime Superstars and they enjoy eating their lunch on the Celebration table for everyone to see. They especially enjoy the special treats that they get in addition to their lunch! Look out for photographs of our winning children each week in the newsletter.