The School Council
Role and Responsibilities of The School Council
- To be the pupils voice.
- Representing the school.
- To have termly meetings with all School Council members.
- To discuss ideas and suggestions made by the classes to the School Council.
- Vote on any actions required eg. voting for School Council Captain and Vice Captain.
- Organise charity events eg. Bake Sale for Children in Need, selling poppies for The Royal British Legion.
- Keeping our school clean and tidy is a big part of a School Council members role. Members take it in turns to take out the big wheelie recycling bin in the Key Stage 2 playground and to remind children in both playgrounds to recycle their rubbish if possible to help keep school clean and tidy. They also talk to other children to encourage them to recycle at home.
Role of Individual School Council Members
The role of a School Council member is to act as a representative of all the children in school and to show responsibility in all roles that they may be asked to undertake, either within school or outside.
A School Council member will need to be:
- reliable and responsible.
- proud of our school, and want it to be the best it can be.
- the voice of the children who elected them.
- able to listen to the views of others in their class and take their ideas to the School Council meetings.
- representative of the majority vote of the class even if they don’t agree.
- committed to giving time to the role and accept that they may need to give up some of their time at break/lunchtimes to help.
- kind and respectful.
- uphold the school values.
Voting for School Council Members
- Class members are asked if they would like to stand as a School Council member.
- The class will hold a secret vote for two members from each year group.
- At the first meeting of the school year, School Council members vote for a Captain and Vice Captain to stand for one year. Their role is to lead the School Council.
About our School Council
Our School Council is a group of friendly, helpful and responsible pupils who are committed to working hard to make a difference to our school.
We are keen to be the voice for everyone in the school. All pupils should feel free to share their opinions to make the school even better.
We work together as a team to make sure that our school is a positive, healthy and safe place to learn, and work hard to uphold and promote the school values.
If anyone has any fundraising ideas or suggestions please write in the 'Suggestions Book' by the School Council display.
Past Fundraising Events
The Royal British Legion
We help annually to sell poppies and accessories to the children and staff in school (at break and lunchtimes) to raise money for The Royal British Legion.
Children in Need
We have an annual bake sale after school on Children in Need Day, to raise funds.
Film Night
We discussed choices and decided on three films for Key Stage 2 children to vote on to be watched at the Hotdog Supper, which raised money for PTA and KTA school funds. This included helping to organise the voting and counting of final results.
Buddy Benches
There have been bake sales to fundraise for ‘Buddy Benches’ in the playground. Children can use these benches to sit and chat, or if they feel like they need a 'Buddy' a 'Buddy' will go over and talk or play with them.
Maths Week
During a past Maths week a fundraising bake sale was held.
Has Covid-19 had an effect on our School Council?
As with so many things Covid-19 has had an effect on our School Council.
Since our whole school return in September we have been working in bubbles. This has made it very difficult to operate School Council.
We would usually, by now, have already had a democratic vote within the classes to choose our School Council members and within those members, voted for a Captain and a Vice Captain after hearing the candidate’s speeches.
We would already of helped to sell poppies and accessories for The Royal British Legion and had a bake sale for Children In Need in November. We also would be about to decide on the three films to be voted on for the Hotdog Supper for KS2 in March.
We are hoping to be able to get the School Council up and running as normally as possible very soon. We will have to have meetings within our school bubbles and will be limited on what we will be able to do. Our usual ideas for fundraising will not be able to run but we are sure that we will be able to come up with some new ones.
School Council Future Plans
We will be very limited on what fundraising ideas we will be able to carry out in the future due to Covid-19.
When the children return to school after the current lockdown we will have the vote to elect the new members, within our school bubbles. We will then elect Captain and a Vice Captain. Meetings will be held to discuss new ideas.
School Council have two display boards in school, one will be kept as a general School Council display and one of our ideas is for the other board to be used for the children who are currently in school to collaborate on a piece of work about kindness. It is the hope that this project will link the children across the school and the focus on doing acts of kindness to fill the grid up (photos of the progress can be taken and shown to pupils) will unite us all in being kind to others and make the school the best it can be, which is an important role of the School Council.
100 Acts of Kindness
We feel that it in these unprecedented times it is vitally important to promote kindness. The teachers will already have had discussions with the children about the importance of being kind to others, with their acts of kindness being put in the kindness boxes in the classrooms. The idea is that these ‘Acts of Kindness’ are written on a post-it note and added to the grid on the School Council display board. There are 100 squares on the grid to be filled up by the whole school, this will continue until the whole grid is full. Photos to show the progress can be taken and shown to children to encourage them to help fill it up.
What makes our school a happier place?
We also have another idea for a collaborative piece of work for the School Council board.
It incorporates a picture of the world and lots of words around it in different styles and sizes. These words will include things like unity, friendship, respect, peace, hope etc.
The words could be printed out for the children to colour in or they could design, draw and colour their own. They will then be placed on the display around the outside of the world.