Local junior school pupils will explain the community issues raised by schoolchildren at the Pupils Voice event held earlier in the year.
Minutes:
The Chairman introduced and welcomed local junior school pupils who were attending to make a presentation explaining the community issues raised at the Pupils Voice event held earlier that year.
With the aid of slides, the children explained that a total of 47 pupils from Bitham Brook, Bratton, Chapmanslade, Dilton Marsh, Westbury Leigh & Westbury Junior Schools had met in June for a Pupil Voice event. This was the first event of its kind in the area and gave pupils a chance to meet others and discuss ideas around the topic ‘My Local Community’, which covered both Westbury town and the villages surrounding it. The children split into groups and completed a range of activities.
Activity 1 was called Mapping where the children looked at where they were born and for those who knew where their parents and grandparents were born. They talked about how this might impact on their feeling of belonging to the community. They looked at reasons for moving into the community some of which were:
· Working in the armed forces
· Countryside
· Jobs
· New experiences or simply because they liked the area
Activity 2 was looking at ‘What my Community means to me’. Here the children were asked to think about the following statements:
· My community means…..
· Home to me
· Feeling safe
· Feeling proud
· Getting to know the people who live near me
· Doing activities
· Knowing all about where I live
The children from each of the schools all chose the following three choices as priorities:
· Home to me
· Feeling safe where I live
· Getting to know the people who live near me
Activity 3 asked ‘How safe do you feel’ Some of the comments were:
· The Park felt safe to some as it was enclosed but unsafe to others as bigger children hang out there.
· The shops felt safe because there were lots of people about but some children felt that this also meant there were a lot of strangers.
· Generally there was a feeling of safety in most of the places.
Activity 4 completion of a Westbury Wishes card This asked the children to identify three best things in Westbury and three ways to make it better.
The top 10 things were:
· The White Horse
· Jitterbugs sweet shop
· Swimming Pool
· Shops
· Parks
· Friendly, happy place
· Schools
· Views and countryside
· People look after each other
· After school clubs
The top 10 ways to make Westbury better were:
· More and better shops
· Better leisure/activity centre
· Encourage people to clean up after themselves and their dogs
· More CCTV, security and street lamps
· More sweet shops
· More parks
· More places to eat – KFC, McDonalds
· Stop building
· Keep the woodlands, nature grounds and views
· Stop graffiti
Finally, the children said that they were all presented with a certificate and also a camera recorder for use in their school in future projects.
At the conclusion of their presentation, the Chairman warmly thanked the children on behalf of the Area Board for attending the meeting with their teachers/parents and sharing their experiences which was most interesting and useful in helping to make plans for the future.