Hampshire House 

Hampshire House Children's Council

This term we have invited our older Preschool children in Playfair Grey to participate in a Children’s Council. These are small weekly meetings that provide rotating groups of our older 4 – 5 year-old children with an opportunity to meet with our Director Simone Cooke and Educational Leader Caroline Glover, to embed our school values with our older students. It gives our children the chance to discuss issues and initiatives about our programmes, whilst also providing them with the chance to have input into our policies and procedures at Hampshire. This ensures our children are involved in conversations that affect their learning and offers opportunities for agency.

By being directly involved in decisions that affect each of them, our children build confidence, initiative and leadership skills. It also offers opportunities for important social skill development, such as turn taking, sharing, and confidence in talking and listening. Across the course of the year, all our Preschool Grey children will have the opportunity to be involved in the Children’s Council. In selecting children each week to attend we evaluate each child’s individual goals and invite children who we have observed have a particular interest in agenda items being discussed.  Just some of the topics we will be exploring includes input into playground rules, rest time procedures, recommendations for resources, ideas for incursions and Beach School and suggestions for positive reinforcement. 

Our children have been observing our regular teacher meetings and feel very grown up to be included in their very own meetings, they particularly like visiting the office and sitting in the “big chairs” whilst wearing their name tags. We recognise that not all children will wish to participate, and it is important that their participation is a mutual decision. We are certain that it will not surprise you to hear that some of the children’s early suggestions have included having a four-day week, finishing school early each day and having ice creams at lunch time! But they have also developed some excellent rules for group time, and have thought of some good “calming" strategies along with some lovely suggestions for settling new children.

By supporting children’s engagement in our programs and procedures, we have a richer program that reflects the views of our youngest students. We can’t wait to see what exciting ideas await us next week!

Ms Lisa Potter

Lead Teacher Playfair Grey