School Council What is School Council? This is a group of children, from Reception to Year 6, who meet at least once every half term. It is an opportunity for the ‘Pupil Voice’ to be heard. At these meetings, Councillors have the chance to discuss how to make our school even better. These might be problems that need to be solved or new ideas. Once deciding on ways to make our school even better, Councillors think about what actions to take as well as taking responsibility for these actions. Who attends School Council meetings? Each class has two School Councillors. These are voted by the class in September and are the School Councillors for the whole school year. Additionally, a different 'Guest Member' from each class is elected each half term to attend meetings. This allows more children to share their views and ideas. This ‘Guest Member’ is somebody that the teacher feels has shown some or all of the qualities listed below during that half term. What qualities does a School Councillor need to have?
Commitment to making our school even better Approachable
Friendly Able to communicate well with children and adults
Have initiative Be a good listener
What happens at School Council meetings? Before every meeting, School Councillors ask their class the key question, 'How can we make our school even better?'. Councillors bring these ideas to the School Council meeting and we discuss the ideas and decide which ones are achievable and realistic. We decide the necessary steps to make these changes and decide on a deadline of when we hope to achieve this. What happens after School Council meetings? The main points of the meeting are written up afterwards. School Councillors and the 'Guest Councillor' have a copy of these to feed back to their class. The points include what we want to improve about our school and how we will go about this. School Councillors take responsibility to make sure these changes occur. What are we working on right now? This year we have worked on the following: - Fundraising for a ‘Friendship Bench’. This included a recent cake sale with cakes donated and bought by the Valley community and run by some of the older School Councillors. It raised £439 and all left over cakes were donated to a local Food Bank Café which was visited by 75 people the following day who very much enjoyed the cakes! - Creating an Eco Club which is going to start in the Summer Term. - Initiating a ‘Quiet Area’ club for KS1 and KS2 children who wish to take time away from the hustle and bustle of the playground during lunch break. Year 5 children interviewed for the role of Quiet Area Monitor and are proud to run the daily club. - Deciding on a ‘Playground Charter’ which will shortly be implemented on the playground and help children abide by appropriate rules.