School Council and Eco Committee
School Council
Who are they?
A School Council is a representative group of students who have been proposed and elected by their peers to represent their views and raise issues with the Senior Managers of their school. A School Council can also propose and take forward initiatives and projects on behalf of their peers. The object of an effective School Councils is to help children to:
• enjoy and feel empowered by their education
• feel that their school responds to their needs and views
• have the opportunity to let adults know their feelings and opinions about things that affect them
• have a say about decisions, and to play an active role in making their school a better place
• develop life skills through participation
How are they selected?
Each year, children in every class are invited to prepare a presentation or speech if they wish to be considered as a school council representative. Children then vote to elect their school council representative. It is important for the class to think about who will do the job well and earn the respect of their class… someone who is
RELIABLE – remembers to go to meetings
FAIR – takes everybody’s views to meetings
THOUGHTFUL – considers your feelings
A GOOD LISTENER – understands different points of view
A GOOD SPEAKER – discusses things clearly
ACCURATE & EFFICIENT – reports back from the Council
What do they do?
This year our school council representatives have been involved in many initiatives. These have included feeding back their views on how they see the system of rewards and sanctions working within the school, asking their classes for their choices of which charities to support throughout the year, putting forward their ideas for making play time fun and coming up with fund-raising ideas. They also helped to choose and organise our recent Royal Wedding celebrations.
ECO Committee
How are the ECO Committee Selected?
All interested children had an explanation about what Eco club would involve this academic year and they were invited to write a short explanation as to why they wanted to be involved. These applications were discussed between Mrs Fox and Mrs Greenwood and a committee was selected representing children from Years 1-6.
Meetings
There are 12 meetings throughout the year after school on Wednesdays. At the first meeting we made an environmental review of the school and an action plan was drawn up based on the committee’s findings.
Projects
We have been involved in two U.K based projects this year, ‘Switch Off Fortnight’ and ‘Waste Week.’ Assemblies were held to explain the projects to the rest of the school to inform and involve everyone. We showed that school electricity could be saved when we remembered to switch off and our committee monitored food and plastic waste during waste week.
The Committee have made a new Eco Code which will be going up in all classrooms shortly. We have also won a bid for funding from Caterlink to set up a kitchen garden.