School Government and Class Councils

Article 12 of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (UNCRC) says that children and young people should have a say in decisions that affect their lives. Our School Government and Class Councils provide a meaningful way in which pupils can voice their opinions and have their views taken into account in decisions which impact upon them.

Elections

At the start of the year, all children can nominate themselves as a candidate to be their class representative in the School Government. If they nominate themselves, they must be able to explain why they would like the position, how they would be an effective representative and what they would like to achieve for the school. These are presented in a range of age-appropriate ways across the school including speeches, posters and campaign videos.

Once all candidates have campaigned for the position, children in each class can vote for one girl and one boy to represent their class. Once the votes have been counted, the new representatives are announced.

Organisation

The School Government meets together with Mr Cicinski or Mr Wright on a regular basis to discuss whole-school issues, make decisions about the focus for future projects and get feedback from each individual class.

Classes each hold regular class council meetings which are led by the elected class representatives and their teacher. The classes may discuss issues brought back to the class council from School Government meetings, may discuss ways in which they can help support current School Government projects or may identify topics for the School Government to discuss in their following meeting.  In these ways, every child in school has an input into school projects and has a way of having their voice heard.

The School Government is organised into 'departments' and classes take it in turn to focus their attention on each department throughout the school year. The current departments combine whole-school and national areas of focus. They are: 

• Health and Sport (Autumn 2023  -  Years 1,2 & 6)
• The Arts and Literature (Autumn 2023 - Years 3 and 5)
• Nature and the Environment (Autumn 2023 - Reception & 4)

The School Government also helps organise a range of events during these terms to raise money or awareness for a particular cause they, or the school, have selected. 

Every member of the council wears a badge so that they can be easily identified by their peers if there is a question they would like to ask, an idea they would like to offer or an issue which they would like to raise.

Class Council 2023-24

Last Year! 2022-2023

Autumn 2022 School Government Projects!

This term, the school government members talked to their class councils and came up with some projects that the pupils would like to explore. Working with the other school government members, the long lists of ideas were whittled down to three for each government area!

Keep your eyes open for updates on how we get on with these projects.

November 2022

School Government have worked on their action plans and have now...

• written to Mr Wright asking him to help them choose a range of new reading books for classrooms, library and the reading scheme
• written to Mr Mee asking him to get in touch with someone he knows to set up some girls' football matches
• written to Mr Mee asking him to run weekly athletics events for each class
• made energy monitor posters for every classroom and asked every class to have a dedicated energy monitor each week
• made litter posters and asked each Junior class to take it in turns to be responsible for litter collecting with the new litter picker that Mr Cicinski has bought

School Government have also worked with the class councils to come up with ideas to support Children in Need on Friday 18th November. Our Government members selected from a huge range of ideas and voted democratically for ... Pudsey dance parties and a mystery feely-box challenge! 

Past Years!

Class Council Videos During COVID-19

In the past, during periods of COVID-19 when mixing between classes was not possible due to class 'bubbles', Class Councils still met to discuss issues raised by members of the school community. Each class put together a video of their conclusions and these were shared across the school community. A sample of these videos are included below.