The Year 5 students have learnt the importance of classroom ownership. The following quotes are students explaining why Student Voice and Agency is important and how they have incorporated it so far this year:

It is important so we are involved and confident to help us learn. It helps us to be independent learners by having courage to understand things better when we have a problem, and we are resilient by working things out on our own. Ryan 

It is important because we get to have our say and express our choices. Isabel 

We have been learning about factors and multiples. We are getting really good at it and now we can learn from our SURF display board (Strategies - Understanding - Reading - Fast Facts). Nathaniel

The class has made a lot of displays. I helped make the Welcome door poster and the class banner. The banner states ‘We’re kicking goals in 5-LT’. We all voted a soccer theme so the banner and the door poster match the theme. Wendal

As a class we voted to have a prayer mat of a tree and a Mary MacKillop quote ‘Let us be humble and grateful’ (1898). The tree is to represent Mary reading to the less fortunate and we have books to continue the story.  Nakira

We all contributed to the classroom expectations and we got to choose what we wanted it to look like - we could draw and/or write an expectation. I think it looks really good because everyone used a lot of ideas. Jeremy

We even have student voice in our homework. We got a choice in the project for home study and we also got the choice of how to present it.  Teebel

As a class we all got to choose a job that helps our classroom and teacher. Radvin 

Our teacher asks as a question every roll call and we get to share a little about yourself every morning and get to know each other better, it allows us to express ourselves. Isabel  

As a whole class we created our class expectations, it is displayed in our class so it can remind us about what to do or how to work in the classroom. Liana 

We all voted for and choose a puzzle piece for our prayer cloth and we all got to choose how we designed the piece. We also choose the quote ‘Be eager in your desires but humble and patient in your accomplishments’. Jocelyne 

We use the SMART strategies to set up our goals - to help make them more achievable in the term, we also use the SURF strategy in maths to help when we’re stuck.  Brighty