Welcome to the Rothwell St Mary’s School Council page 2021/22.
Mrs Sheldon-Price, Mrs Laycock and Mrs Penchion are really looking forward to be working with the council representatives and creating a strong pupil voice and developing a strong democratic ethos.
Rothwell St Mary’s, we pride ourselves on listening to the views and thoughts of the children and taking everything, they say with vigour. The children are valued and their opinion counts. A good solid School Council Policy will further embed the importance of the children’s voice.
What is a school council?
School Council is a formal group of pupils elected by their peers to represent them and their views. It is also an important way in which schools can provide meaningful leadership opportunities for pupils.
Our Aim
Our aim at Rothwell St Mary’s is to create and support a School Council that allows children to orchestrate their views and be leaders of their own ideas. Children will be able to share their views with the school council and their voice will be heard through them to adults within school.
We will change our candidates each year.
There will be two children from each class including KS1, this gives them a better chance to speak in the classroom.
Our meetings will be every week on a Friday during Golden Assembly, we will meet in the dinner hall. Every second meeting (once a month) the children will have the opportunity to bring a guest councillor from their class to share their views also.
A diary will be sent out each year with dates on to help the children take ownership.
Teachers will set an area up a small area in the classroom for the children to use.
Our School council campaign will begin on the 27th September with an assembly for all children, there will be a letter emailed to parent’s so that you can support your children with their entries.
We are pleased to announce that we have finally managed to get all of our candidates together to be able to take a picture of them as one group. we are very proud of our candidates this year as we are every year. The children have already been working on some big projects.
Here they are, our 2021/22 School council Candidates…
I would like to introduce you to our Chairperson, Vice Chairs, Secretary and Treasurer.
Every other week the children are able to bring an extra person from their class to add their views and thoughts on the things that are happening in school and on the projects that School Council are working on. This week our children worked together on thinking about our up and coming online workshop with the UK Parliament, they came up with some fantastic ideas. The children went back to their classes and have been given their own chance to have a democratic vote for the playground leaders. Playground leaders will have a very important job of making sure children are fully supported by their peers in the playground and they will help bring back the traditional playground games such as skipping and “What time is it Mr Wolf?” We wish all children good luck in their quest to become a Playground Leader you are all amazing.
Planning
Our vision for Rothwell St Mary’s School Council is whilst giving the whole school of children a voice through the voice of the representatives, we aim to teach children about democracy and the real UK Parliament so every other week we will be learning about all aspects of politics. if you would like to support your children further the UK parliament website has lots of interesting articles and virtual videos to watch.
Here are our plans for this half term…
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Week Commencing
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Learning Objective |
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14th January |
What is UK Parliament? To explain what the structure of the parliament and talk about parliament week. Children will complete the What Is the UK Parliament? Activity sheet. We will watch An Introduction to Parliament video. Children will work together as a group and write the three most important things that the UK Parliament is responsible for.
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21st January |
Subgroups work – updates |
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28th January |
To teach children about the House of Lords and House of Commons. Write to your local MP activity. |
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4th February |
Subgroup work – updates |
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11th February |
To understand what is involved in parliamentary debating.
To try debating themselves using the Big Debates programme. |
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18th February |
Subgroups work – updates |
Exciting news!!!
Firstly, I want to congratulate the children on the work from the School Council team so far, they put every effort into working as a team and the results are just empowering.
We know just how important it is for children to have a voice and our group of councillors are taking their job very seriously (quite rightly) and delivering messages to their classes and vice versa they are bringing the children’s voice back to council.
I wanted to let you know that the children have been given the opportunity to take part in a virtual online workshop on the 4th of February, this will give them an Introduction to Parliament. Usually at the end of these sessions your local MP would do a Q&A virtually. Well, I am very excited to tell you that instead of a virtual Q&A Alec Shelbrooke (MP for Elmet and Rothwell) will be coming to school to do a face-to-face Q&A for the School Council members.
I hope you will celebrate this with your children and support them in thinking of things that they would really like to know and understand, we will be preparing them well in school, but we think it is an amazing opportunity for our young people to have their voice heard and wanted you to play an integral part.
Where can I contribute?
There is an area in school dedicated to the pupils voice, if any child would like the opportunity to contribute they are able to do so here. The children can also look at the minutes from the meeting and find out information about our local MP’s and even read about the PM and the Houses of Parliament here. If children want to know what is in the news that week, they can keep up to date with our news articles.
If you would like to find more out about our Local MP, here is some information for you to read.
Playground Leaders: Our playground leaders were democratically voted by their class members organised by the Council members. They have an important role in ensuring they keep playtimes calm and inclusive. Meet our playground leaders:
Friday 4th of February – Our Parliament Day
The children have been planning for this day for weeks, today was the day the children of the School Council and a child from their class would get the opportunity to have an introduction to parliament and have the opportunity to ask questions in person to our local MP Mr Alec Shelbrooke. Mr Shelbrooke allowed children to understand his role and tell us about himself personally we learnt all about why he wanted to become an MP and the children asked fantastic questions that are very current: “What do you think will happen if things escalate in Ukraine?” “What are your thoughts on the free school meals for all children?” They even asked him what his favourite chapter was in the Bible. This would not have happened if it wasn’t for the hard work School Council show every week in school. The children spend a lot of time gathering their fellow pupils views and writing updates in the newsletter and attending our meetings. I thank you greatly for this.
Our day went like this:
The children started the day with a virtual workshop direct from the houses of parliament.
We then had the opportunity to have a Q&A with our local MP: Alec Shelbrooke:
After this Alec Shelbrooke was presented with Ruby’s petition letter that she had her whole class sign, Ruby read this to Alec with great confidence and conviction Alec took the original with him to pass onto Boris requesting a reply to Ruby’s questions.
Mr Shelbrooke was then shown around our school by members of the council who were amazing. Mr Shelbrooke engaged in conversation with year 5 about the work they were doing around the Andes and said he would love to read their adventure stories once finished. Mr Shelbrooke finished his visit off in Reception where he explained to them about his job role and the children showed their amazing manners by asking Mr Shelbrooke how he was. Mr Shelbrooke was blown away by our school and we were proud to tell him that we were too each and everyday.
We finished our day with some obligatory pictures and selfie of course, well we are in 2022!!!
