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With Christ at our side and
St. Gerard as our guide, we live,
love, learn and pray together.

Beyond the Classroom

Pupil Leaders

At St. Gerard’s school we promote good citizenship in a variety of ways. The children have opportunities to hold various positions of responsibility in school aiming to serve each other and improve life in and around school.

The most important people in our school are our children and their voice is of paramount importance.

We are also proud to offer a strong Cultural Capital overview for overview for our children, giving them the opportunity to take their learning beyond the classroom.

Whole School Cultural Capital Overview

Gift Team

St. Gerard’s Gift Team is formed at the beginning of each year with representatives from each of the Key Stage 2 classes.

These specially selected children play a very important role in Collective Worship and the Catholic Life of St. Gerard’s. They follow a vocation to serve others and lead them in Faith.

Their job is to:

Strengthen the Faith of our school;
Lead in class prayer and Collective Worship;
Be an example of Christ’s teaching to others;
Follow the Gospel Virtues and Values;
Meet regularly to develop Collective Worship in our school;
Disseminate messages to our class mates;
Attend our places of worship to develop our own Faith every week;
Be living examples of our Mission Statement: I am a servant of Christ. It is my job to go out in the world as a leader and a servant.

Gift Team motto: Faith without action, isn’t faith at all.

Pupil Parliament

Our Pupil Parliament consists of children from Year 1 to Year 6, with representatives chosen from each class. Children are given the opportunity to put themselves forward and explain why they would like to represent their classmates and contribute to our school community.

Pupil Parliament meets regularly to discuss issues that affect children in our school and to share ideas about how we can make our school an even better place. Representatives listen to the views of their classmates and ensure that every child has a voice.

A key responsibility of our Pupil Parliament is to promote British Values across our school. Each half term, the children will focus on one of the four British Values:

Democracy
The Rule of Law
Individual Liberty
Mutual Respect and Tolerance

Our British Values are closely linked to our Catholic Social Teaching. Through their work, our Pupil Parliament helps children understand how values such as human dignity, the common good, solidarity, participation, compassion and care for others can be lived out in our everyday school life.

Pupil Parliament representatives are role models who encourage others to speak up, listen to different views, respect one another and take responsibility for making a positive difference in our school and wider community.

At St. Gerard’s, we believe that every child has God-given gifts and talents. Our Pupil Parliament helps children use these gifts in the service of others, living out our school mission:

“With Christ at our side and St Gerard as our guide, we live, love, learn and pray together.”

Pupil Leadership

Alongside our Pupil Parliament, we also have a team of Year 6 Ambassadors who take on important leadership responsibilities within our school. Our ambassadors help to welcome visitors, show guests around our school and represent St. Gerard’s in a positive and respectful way. They are excellent role models for younger pupils and demonstrate our school values through their actions, kindness and service to others.

We also appoint a Head Boy and Head Girl from Year 6. They are senior pupil leaders who help to represent the voice of children across the school, support important school events and act as positive role models. Through these leadership roles, our pupils have opportunities to develop confidence, responsibility and a strong sense of service to others, reflecting our Catholic mission and Catholic Social Teaching.

House Captains

We have eight pupils from Year 6 that are our House Captains, two for each of the houses.

Our House Groups are:

St. Pope John Paul II (yellow house)
St. Teresa of Calcutta (blue house)
St. Bernadette (green house)
St. Maximillian Kolbe (red house)As part of the rewards system within St. Gerard’s, pupils are awarded house points for their respective house groups. Each week the House Captains have the important responsibility to collect the totals from each class. These are collated and totals are announced during Monday’s assembly. The house that collects the most house points throughout a term are rewarded by having a ‘non-uniform day’.

Play Leaders

At St. Gerard’s School, we believe it is important to be as active as possible. We aim to be physically active for 30 minutes each day at school. Our play leaders assist with this goal every lunchtime.

Made up of Year 5 children, these leaders voluntarily organise and run various different activities for all children to play.

The aim of the scheme is that it will increase the amount of physical activity undertaken during playtime and reduce the amount of issues on the playground. It is hoped there will be a whole school impact in terms of children’s behaviour both at lunchtime and in afternoon lessons.

For the Year 5 pupils, this opportunity allows them to introduce and develop leadership skills to transfer into other roles in the future. The scheme will also raise self-esteem and self-confidence of the leaders. We are very lucky to have new and exciting equipment to inspire the play leaders to create engaging and energetic activities for all.

You can spot our play leaders by looking out for their red bibs, which say ‘Play Leader’ on the back. If anyone is unsure of what to play, wants to be active or wants to try something new they can get involved with any activity they like!

Cafod Club

St. Gerard’s Cafod Club members meet every second Monday during the school term and we take an avid interest in and around the school grounds.

Our aim as a group to care and respect our school and its surroundings by litter picking – sometimes during break times and also within the hour session on Monday afternoon. Taking extra care using the litter pickers whilst wearing protective gloves when items are made of glass or other sharp implements to notify an adult.

Within our school we promote recycle, reduce and reuse. We regularly empty the green classroom paper recycling bags and also the blue recycling bags situated around other offices and rooms within the school, into blue wheelie bins which are collected by the local council.

We care for the surroundings of our school by planting and pruning the flowerbeds, painting the flowerbed boxes and also the wooden railings. We regularly refill the bird feeders with nuts and different seeds throughout the year to encourage several species of birds to our playground.

During the wet sessions we make our own bird food using lard, nuts, seeds and even dried cereals. We design posters to promote our group aims i.e. save water, electricity and of course recycle! We from time to time have raffles to raise funds for supplies.

Altar Servers

We are very proud to have a number of altar servers participating at St. Gerard’s Parish Church each week and supporting our school masses. Anyone from Year 4, who has made their First Holy Communion, can become an altar server, once they carry out the required training.

The primary role of the altar server is to assist the priest in the celebration of the liturgy during Mass. This is done through specific actions and by setting an example to the congregation by active participation in the liturgy (hymns, responses, etc.) and sitting or standing at the appropriate times.

Servers carry the cross, the processional candle(s), hold the book for the priest celebrant when he is not at the altar, carry the incense and censer, present the bread, wine, and water to the priest during the preparation of the gifts or assist him when he receives the gifts from the people, wash the hands of the priest, assist the priest celebrant and deacon as necessary.

Reading Ambassadors

Along with the usual duties of our school librarians, this year our Reading Ambassadors will be in the library each afternoon to help and guide our younger children to choose and read books. They will be on hand to suggest books which are suitable for that child and read to them if they so wish.

Each child wrote an impressive letter to Mrs Hepburn explaining why they should be chosen for the job.

Junior PCSOs

Junior PCSOs is a leadership initiative developed by West Midlands Police and Neighbourhood Teams. The aim of the scheme is to empower our school to tackle and educate in the issues of parking, bullying and litter to create a safer environment for the common good of us all.

Pupils from Year 5 applied for the role of Junior PCSO, and seven pupils, with excellent behaviour and attitude towards work were chosen to be our first PCSOs. The group are currently undertaking training with PCSO Duncan.

Through their work, they will become Stewards of God’s creation making Castle Vale a peaceful home for all its residents.

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