At Esh Church of England Primary School we want our children to grow up to live out our Christian Values of Compassion, Perseverance and Respect. As part of our School Christian Vision of ‘Building Together’ we acknowledge that this also includes the wider global community. Our School Christian Vision is built upon the teachings of Jesus. Jesus lived his life in a truly compassionate way and spoke out for injustice. In the same way we want our children to be compassionate citizens, with the necessary skills to challenge injustice and build a better world.
We introduce the children in our school to many examples of Courageous Advocacy and they use Church of England Awards to promote and develop leadership skills and qualities.
At Esh Church of England Primary School, the children are involved in the following ‘awards’.
Archbishop Youth Trust Young Leaders Award
Children in Year 1 and Year 6 both complete the Young Leaders Award during their time in school. This is an award created by the Archbishop Youth Trust which develops pupils’ character education and role as global citizens. We have completed the KS2 Archbishop Youth Trust Young Leaders Award for many years and were one of the first schools to complete the KS1 Archbishop Youth Trust Young Leaders Award. Please see the links below to the Archbishop Youth Trust Young Leaders Award Website which showcases two of our success stories!
Whilst completing the award, the children learn to:
- Explore the concept of leadership
- Investigate the stories and impact of great leaders in society
- Consider the importance of serving others
- Examine how to bring transformation to communities
- Take action to ‘be the change you want to see
The award culminates in a community action project and these have included community litter picks, random acts of kindness, and developing outdoor areas in school.
https://www.archbishopofyorkyouthtrust.co.uk/news/esh-c-of-e-primarys-young-leaders-award-story
https://www.archbishopofyorkyouthtrust.co.uk/news/ks1-pupils-spread-joy-with-sunflowers
National Younger Leaders Award (NYLG)
In 2023-2024 and 2024-2025 children in Y5 have completed the National Younger Leaders Award. This has been a fantastic opportunity to join with children in schools around England via Zoom and talk about things that help them as individuals to flourish and also what enables communities to flourish. They also discussed issues that prevented flourishing. The children talked very passionately to each other about things that were important to them. This included using their voices for social justice, caring about the environment and what the church could do to enable communities to flourish.
Class Courageous Advocates
Each class has been assigned a Courageous Advocate as an example of how people have used their voices for change. All but one of these Courageous Advocates are children. This is to show that everyone’s voice should be listened to and everyone can be an advocate of positive change, no matter what age they are or how small the change. The children at Esh Church of England Primary School know that lots of small changes can add up to very big changes.