Ravenshall School

Wakefield Special


Please describe what you did and why you did it?


We have many roles already embedded throughout school which gives pupils the opportunity to contribute to the day to day running. Roles; such as ambassadors, sports leaders and science leaders have allowed children to support adults in school beyond their role as a pupil. We are a through school and have children from Foundation stage right up to our Preparation for Adulthood, where Y12/13 pupils do a range of activities focused on becoming more independent and self-sufficient.


We decided that after consulting pupils, many KS3 pupils wanted the opportunity to support the Primary children at play time as they spoke about future aspirations of working with children, that giving them the experience now at school could give them an early taster to what this involves.


Therefore, pupils were asked if they wanted to support the other children and 10 pupils volunteered who then would be split between the break times every day to ensure at least 2 KS3 pupils were helping the Primary pupils.



Describe what difference this made and what has changed? Who benefited? Please include qualitative and/or quantitative data and state the source of the data.

Quantitative/quantitative data.


This has benefitted the pupils involved in the role as well as the pupils they are supporting in the playground. It has allowed the children to take on responsibility alongside the adults in school, children seeing that they are doing this role has allowed them to support those children lower on confidence who do not always initiate play.


With Ravenshall School having a Primary and Secondary provision, it has helped a lot to support the transitions of year 6 pupils too, as this is giving them extra insight into the role they could take up in the future. Also, it is chance for the children to get to know familiar faces to support transitions for when they move to year 7 in September.


Please provide any other anecdotal information and/or supporting quotations to demonstrate impact.


The children have a badge with their job title on, which states what role they have, so it is clear that their role is to support children as Lunchtime Helper/Student Play Worker.


What worked well? What would you do differently? Any advice to other schools? Did you face any significant barriers or challenges?


This has improved the confidence of children who volunteered for the role and has shown that the children who are consistently doing the role really enjoy this. We found that having key staff that would support the Student Play Workers ensured they had a person to go to if they needed anything.


With the role, we ensured that it had nothing to do with academic achievement and was purely a role which would benefit those who had a desire to work/help children now and possibly in the future.



Next steps…

How do you plan to ensure that the positive impact is maintained?


We have created a display in school that shows what children are involved in this and a job  description of what their job entails and why this is an important role in school.


The role is reviewed every half term so provides an opportunity to others if they want to have a try at being a Student Support Worker.


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