Our School Council are the voice of the pupils within the school. Together, they meet regularly with a member of staff to discuss issues within school, help support new ideas or initiatives within school as well helping voice anything from within their class and year group.

At Nyewood CE Junior School we want all of our learners to be happy, feel safe, valued and are fully included in everything that we do.

Our Young Interpreters Scheme recognises the potential that exists within our school community for learners to support their peers that are new to speaking English or to our country, so that they feel safe, settled and valued from the very start of their school experience.

Our Young Interpreters have been chosen specifically by their teachers, as they have demonstrated their kindness, helpfulness and empathy towards others. They have undergone specific training to prepare for their role and support new learners in various different ways, including:

• Being a buddy to new children during break and lunch times by playing games or eating lunch with them.
• Showing new children and visitors around the school.
• Checking in with new children to make sure they are ok.
• Helping new children to communicate with others, e.g. if they have a problem or difficulty.
• Leading worships and sharing knowledge about life in their country of origin and its culture.  

We are very proud of the positive impact our Young Interpreters have on our school.

This is a letter from The Nyewood Young Interpreters, they all wanted to explain about their role in school.

Here is what we have been doing with Mrs Smith and Mrs Mann. Mrs Smith and Mrs Mann have been training us to be Young Interpreters, we have learnt about how people may feel when they start a new school, either as a child from another country or just coming from another school and not knowing anyone!

We had a school worship where we explained to everyone what we do and were given a Young Interpreter badge, a certificate, notebook and pencil.

In one of our meetings we had a drink and biscuits and talked about some ways to try and help our peers; we also played a game of charades and learnt how we can use our body language to help describe something. (next time we are going to play Pictionary as another way to describe something without talking).

In other meetings we were thinking of ways we could also help our school and the wider community

We are going to run a Young Interpreter Thursday breaktime club to play games, crafting and quiet reading to make sure we include children that find breaktimes a little difficult.

In our school we have some Ukrainian pupils and we wanted to see if we could help people in their country, we were very excited to have a Ukrainian Relief Charity come to speak to us in assembly about how we can help.

We are also going to organise a Christmas shoebox appeal to give presents to children from other countries that may have never experienced the joy of receiving a gift.

Mr Spurle, Mrs Smith and Mrs Mann (with our help) want to find out more about the different countries that our school pupils come from and then we can share what we have found out with the rest of the school.

We also hope to set up a pen friend group to learn about how children live in another country. (Mr Spurle is in the midst of organising this now.)

We are really enjoying being Young Interpreters, and knowing that we can help someone.