Courageous Advocacy

At Ashlands we know that Courageous Advocacy means speaking up and taking action to help others or make something better, even when it’s hard or scary to do. It’s about being brave enough to stand up for what’s right and not giving up, even if people don’t agree with you or it feels tough. Sometimes, it means helping people who don’t have a voice or standing up to unfairness. Being a courageous advocate means you care about others and do something to make a difference, even when it’s hard or scary.

Being a Church school is special! The Church of England is a strong advocate for Courageous Advocacy and explains it as speaking out when something is unfair, especially to help others who need support. At Ashlands, we encourage and support our children to become courageous advocates who believe that they can become ‘agents of change’ to strive towards a fairer and more joyous world.

This enables our school community to develop a greater awareness of the challenges others face in life and how they, as individuals, can support causes and make a difference in our school community, local community and further afield.

Guided by our aim for our children to ‘love learning, life and one another’, staff encourage the children to become ‘agents of change’, championing causes which are especially meaningful for the children themselves. These may be global issues or matters far more personal and closer to home. We believe this develops resilience, teamwork, courage, independence, along with an understanding of the wider world and how they can help to make it a better place.

Every child in our school is a Courageous Advocate for the common good locally, nationally and globally. Our School Council come together to decide upon a Charity for the whole school to support across the year. This may be a local or global charity. We also take time to reflect upon and appreciate how lucky we are to be part of such a nurturing school environment, surrounded by supportive peers and staff, which allows us to feel inspired and achieve our potential.

The Good Samaritan

Our school parable of the Good Samaritan reminds our children of how Jesus spoke up for people who were disadvantaged, disempowered and ignored by their communities. Our children are encouraged to reflect on Jesus’ actions and teachings to inform their own values, judgements and courageous choices.

Courageous Advocacy and Worship

As part of our Collective Worship each week we take time to look at what is in the news. We use this time to understand the news, discuss how it makes us feel and how this impacts us, our local area and the wider world. We use our reflection skills to ask and answer questions then link these stories to the relevant British Values and Global Goals. This often leads to discussions about how we can help shape changes in our future

Courageous Advocacy in action.

Supporting various charities locally, nationally and globally is an integral part of life at Ashlands. Staff, pupils and parents regularly support and organise fundraising events, with some children suggesting and organising events of their own.

Examples of Courageous Advocacy at Ashlands include:

Examples of Courageous Advocacy at Ashlands CofE Primary include:

Food Collection at Harvest time : Collecting items to be shared with The Lords Larder and Be A Good Neighbour. This food is then donated to those in need across our local communities.
Respect for our environment has inspired children to champion the cause of ensuring the school environment is litter free, with one of our Year 6’s organising regular litter picks around school at breaktimes, collecting and dropped rubbish and putting it in the bin. Members of our community have also attended litter picks on local beaches.
We raise money for Children in Need every year.
We champion Anti-Bullying Week by undertaking a range of activities and wearing odd socks to embody the message “it’s okay to be different.”

Poppy Appeal 2024 Our children raised a mighty £165.18 through our poppy sales. The School Counsellors took responsibility for ensuring regular sales at breaktimes. The School Council were presented with this lovely certificate to celebrate their courageous advocacy on behalf of the Royal British Legion.

Mental Health Awareness Day – Children’s Mental Health week tea and talk café!

Mrs Chick and Mrs Bell organised a tea and talk café for all the children. The children had a great time and they all managed to chat or play a game with their friends in their house groups. The children were very lucky to be able to have a drink and a delicious cake to enjoy the day. A big thank you to Mrs Noake and Miss Vuna for their positive input and smiley faces in the café to allow this to happen and serve the children their delightful treats. Raising awareness of Mental Health is so super important!

Individual children raise awareness of causes for us all.

Benjamin took part in the Yeovil hospital 5k fun run last year. Benjamin has so far raised a massive £378 on his justgiving page, to go to the children’s ward at the hospital. This is a great cause and they always need more funds to help support children in need.

Some of our children have been Courageous advocates from a very early age

Checking in on the Elderly

Teddy (Year One) has been talking to old people from his mum’s church weekly to cheer them up and make sure they are ok. What a lovely thing to do, well done Teddy!

Charity Walk

On Saturday 20^th June Poppy completed an 8k Rainbow Run/Walk for the Children’s Hospice South West. She raised £95. She loved it and would have kept on walking!

Our Environment

Mackenzie identified our own school environment of needing a helping hand. He organised a group of supporters to help him clean up our school and now does this regularly.