Equality and Rights Advocates will:

• Promote the Equality Act                                                                               
• Enhance pupil voice
• Challenge discrimination and prejudice
• Advocate for the rights of the child (UNCRC)
• Encourage positive attitudes towards difference
• Develop pupil confidence and life skills
• Support vulnerable students
• Increase participation and engagement

Autumn Term

The EARA group is established! 

We have two advocates from each class across Key Stage One who were elected by their class.

On Wednesday 10^th November we met with our Primary EARA group network for the first time. We hosted the session and learnt lots about Equality and Rights. Please see the minutes of our meeting to find out more about what we got up to!

 ‘The children from Stoke Park Infant School were wonderful hosts and provided a large airy hall space with plenty of refreshments on hand to keep our EARA members energised and comfortable’. RADE news (Spring 2022).

Spring Term

We created our mission statement!

'“Our mission is to always be fair, kind, accepting and listen to others. We believe in equality and that every child is unique and deserves to have a voice.”

We got into groups and thought about the key ideas we wanted to be part of our ‘mission’ and used large pieces of sugar paper to make note of our ideas.

We have also been working really hard to make changes in our school. We noticed that the fruit and vegetables which our delivered to us are often in plastic which makes the food go mouldy quicker and is not very good for our environment. The children were very upset by this and decided we should do something about it. The EARA group took photographs of the fruit and vegetables and wrote letters to the supplier to see there is anything they can do to replace/stop the packaging. Look at their response below! 

Our next Primary EARA group meeting was held at Langrish Primary School in March 2022. We had to share the work we had been doing in our own schools to advocate for equality and diversity.

Summer Term

Our Wednesday 22nd June, we had our final Primary EARA group network meeting at Hart Plain Junior School, Waterlooville. The children continued their collaborative work around equality and rights and to explore this we discussed in pairs and then in groups 'what people can see about me', 'what people don't see about me', 'what is important to me' and 'what things we have in common'. We then presented to the other schools our continued EARA group journey. 

As we are the longest standing EARA group in the Primary Network, we were asked to present the EARA badges to the two new schools which have now joined our network and shake their hand to welcome them. 

Towards the end of term, the EARA group went on a litter up around Stoke Park Woods. Our focus and journey this year has been mostly around the environment and sustainability and therefore it was nice to finish on a practical job of clearing some of the rubbish, which was decided by the children themselves. So, armed with litter grabbers and gloves, we couldn't believe how much rubbish we collected. We found bottle tops, plastic gloves, food packets, cardboard and netting, amongst lots of other things!

As a school, we would like to thank the EARA group for all their hard work, dedication and ideas to promote equality and rights across the school, and everything they have done on supporting our school environment!