School Council

Our School Council is a boy and girl from each class elected by their classmates at the beginning of the year. Through this process, all children from Year One to Year Six gain experience of Democracy which is integral to their understanding of ‘British Values’. Every two weeks, we gather to discuss, overview and analyse various school issues so that all children feel heard and together we can make St. Stephen’s an inclusive place to learn.

 

 

Recent Meetings

Friday 31st March 2023

School Council Meeting

Present: Miss Kelly, Mrs Jeffrey

Year 1 – present

Year 2 – present

Year 3 – present

Year 4 – present

Year 5 – present

Year 6 – present

Minutes.

Contributions from School Council Notebook.

Year 1 – To go to France, beach & on a boat or in a submarine for a school trip.

Julia Donaldson to visit the school.

Year 1 – A school trip to the park.

A class pet.

Year 2 – Should get a trampoline for KS1 playground – possibly a fold up model as they do not have an adventure playground.

More Art – more than one lesson a week.

Year 2 – Should have school talent.

Ice cream on Friday at lunch.

Year 3 – Air freshener in the toilets because there are unpleasant smells.

Different flavour muffins for lunch

Year 3 – During rainy breaks – children should have a choice of staying out.

Overnight trips for Year 3.

Year 4 – Use scrap paper instead of using clean sheets of paper if not going into the books.

A tag rugby club.

Year 4 – A Christmas parade of any sort eg dressing up/bonnet and small Easter egg hunt.

Banana bread for a pudding.

Year 5 – Faulty water taps should be fixed as they don’t work properly.  Could we have two more taps.

More exotic fruit eg dragon fruit, pineapples, mangoes, lychee,

Year 5 – New locks for the boys toilets (KS2 playground)

More bins in the KS2 – all types.

Year 6 – Better film choices for Movie Night – preferably not always Disney films

Colder water in lunch times.

Next Meeting:

Week commencing Monday 1^st May 2023

 

Thursday 2nd February 2023

Thursday 2^nd February 2023

School Council Meeting

Present: Miss Kelly, Mrs Jeffrey

Year 1 – present

Year 2 – present

Year 3 – present

Year 4 – present

Year 5 – absent on a school trip

Year 6 – present

Minutes.

Contributions from School Council Notebook.

Year 1 – want a bouncy castle, a trampoline, a climbing frame and slide for the playgrounds. Snakes and ladders painted on the ground (a very popular idea among all school councillors)

Year 1– going on a trip before the half term break – e.g. Maths

Year 2 –omelette on school menu.  Every Wednesday should have a different pudding e.g. apple pie, cake, cloud bread, rice pudding with soya milk/oat milk option, bubble tea and be able to pick different toppings for ice cream

Year 2- want to plant more plants around school and a pet stick insect for each class.

Year 3 –More planting space and calm garden around the school

Year 3- More sports trips for everyone so no one is left out and a residential trip in Year 3

Year 3- would like cultural celebrations/lunch to include a drink.

Year 3 – would like more church services and they would like more holidays added to the school calendar.

Year 4 – use scrap paper be more sustainable/environmentally friendly

Year 4– Adventure playground to be fixed and looks unsafe and worried as children go in there

Year 4 –can class poets come in or have a Zoom call?  4Bloom had Valerie Bloom on Zoom.

Philosophy club to available.

Year 4- want to have a vote on what we can eat for school lunches

Year 4– Try make gymnastics more fun for those who find it challenging (maybe have an adult to support with challenging activities)

Year 4– Plant our own vegetables for our own lunches

Year 5 – absent on class trip

Year 6 –put posters on blue – everything else bins.  Green bins are labelled.

Year 6– Should have more green bins and blue bins in the playground.

Year 6- Massive bin compost – EJ explained waste food is taken to be composted.

Year6- Leftover food could go to a food shelter.

Next Meeting: week commencing 06.02.2023

 

Friday 18th November 2022

School Council Meeting

Present: Miss Kelly, Mrs Jeffrey

Year 1 – present

Year 2 – present

Year 3 – present

Year 4 – present

Year 5 – Blackman present (Silverstein on a trip)

Year 6 – present

Minutes.

Children’s Flower Society

EJ informed school council that every child in the school will be given a daffodil bulb to grow at home as part of a competition kindly arranged by Mrs Wordsworth so we can get excited by growing a plant (part of our Science learning).

Contributions from School Council Notebook.

Year 1

• Playground ideas: to get space hoppers, swings, climbing frames, slides and a bouncy castle, more toys and a trampoline.
• A class pet.
• Ice cream shop.
• Playground Rule Ideas – To be friendly & kind and no pushing
• Lunch ideas – Green pasta (spinach)
• Special trips every half trip.

 Year 2

• To have a school talent to raise money for books damaged in the flood – some interest amongst councillors about taking part.
• To arrange a school outing on Remembrance Sunday for next year.
• To increase school play time – to have more fresh air.
• A day for people to bring pets but need to be careful about allergies.
• Request for more bread, chocolate and custard pudding
• Request for different Wednesday pudding.
• School treasure hunt in summer term.

Year 3

• Weekly sales of badges
• be eco-friendly – raise money for school equipment e.g. exercise books
• Buy food at the end the day – sandwiches like Cookie used to do.
• Compost bins
• Gardening sessions – EJ advised herbalist would be in school in Spring term working with various classes with ideas which may include making lavender bags, creams and balms
• Cheeseburger on Fridays.
• Playground buddies should split their jobs.
• Library sessions should be longer.

Year 4

• To be more eco-friendly: instead of using glue, we could use folders such as Spanish – especially History and Geography.
• Plant some more trees. EJ mentioned that tree saplings are coming in spring.
• Turn off taps to save water.
• To have a water butt in the school ground to save rain water to reuse water.
• Recycling needs to be done better.

Year 5

• Children and teachers need more advice about what can be and cannot be recycled.
• Bring back lasagne at lunchtimes.

Year 6

• Would like a spiral slide in playground.
• Therapy pet.
• Bring back Sloppy Joes at lunchtime.
• To be more eco-friendly – to turn part of the astro to a turf patch so it can catch seeds to grow.

MK – asked for feedback about school dinners and ‘seconds’. Lunchtime Angels are doing a good job.

Next Meeting is on 02/12/22

Friday 21st October 2022

                                                                            Friday 21st October 2022

School Council Meeting

Present: Miss Kelly, Mrs Jeffrey

Year 1 – present

Year 2 – present

Year 3 – present

Year 4 – present

Year 5 – present

Year 6 – present

 

Minutes.

Contributions from School Council Notebook.

Year 5

• raise funds by day for eco initiative – green/blue and discussed
• One house point for finishing food – discussed. Lunch angels quite helpful. Lunch angels favouring friends with portion sizing.
• Enjoying the new menu. Wednesday’s menu carb heavy.
• Portion size too generous. Is pudding offered at the same time as main?
• Mac ‘n’ cheese not a good choice.
• Have more fruit e.g. mango,
• Do a world plant day.
• More playground toys – more stilts? Swings? KS1 have plenty of toys.
• Zones – to be created in the playground so toys should be organised by zones.
• Possibility of having more football slots?
• After school time – chn climbing on goalposts

Year 4 –

• School trip – litter – advised about Big Litter Pick up

Year 3 –

• Gardening club to grow broccoli.
• Greenhouse to be used for all children.
• Every Friday to have eco-friendly glue making.
• Free meals – advised government has policy
• Reduce plastic

Year 2 – nothing recorded ideas notebook

Year 6 – nothing recorded ideas notebook

Year 1 – nothing recorded in books

Feedback for movie night –

• Good feedback generally – especially recycling for paper cones.
• Have more bins available for waste – have a 5 minute clean before end of day.

AOB:

• When will falafels be re-introduced?
• Water fountain needs to be fixed
• Locks on boys’ toilets in KS2 playground broken and not kept clean
• Locks on girls’ toilets in KS2 playground broken and lights turn off when using the toilet.
• Hand drier only works sometimes

Next meeting will be held after the half term.

Monday 3rd October 2022

  School Council Meeting

Present: Mr Schumm, Miss Kelly, Mrs Jeffrey

Year 1 – present

Year 2 – present

Year 3 – present

Year 4 – present

Year 5 – present

Year 6 – present

 

Minutes.

1. Update of eco initiatives

MS – Update of eco-friendly in school

In school lunches, there will 5 labelled waste bins for food only which will be taken away and turned into fuel. All food will be taken away and scraped – in playground, recycling, general waste bins, food bins.

So school councillors will have to tell other children to use the right bins. Litter pickers have been ordered to help with the litter picking.

Frubes will be phased out due to the plastic. Muffins twice a week, fruit other days and a proper pudding on Wednesday.

Mon – pasta

Tuesday – sausages, Yorkshire puds and fruit.

Wednesday – jacket potatoes

Fri – chicken or fish tenders

Simple food menu to reduce waste.

Simple salad for children to eat eg today was carrot sticks, celery sticks.

MS – need to encourage children to eat more to reduce waste.

There will be more wraps for all year groups and school councillors help at lunch time.

 

For FOSS movie nights – no drinks but encouraged to have water bottle. Plastic plates to be used on movie night so there is no throwaway paper plates.

MS – encourage chn to try different foods

GF – suggested each year group to design poster to encourage recycling and general sorting.

LF – queried number and size of bins.  MS confirmed number and size of bins.

MS – conveyed message of saving the planet.  School councillors responsible for educating all the other chn about being eco-friendly. Message to be reinforced in school assembly with the help of school councillors.

MS – informed council that we need to think about how much heating is being used. Chn encouraged to wear jumpers.

OW suggested for end of year water guns, chn could use empty detergent bottles.

 

MK distributed the class school council books to the children for chn to jot down ideas from their classes.

MS suggested chn approach the class teacher about having a regular 5 minutes a week for school council business.

CD and LF (6) to talk to Mr Brown about the posters for the recycling bins – could have competition for winning posters to be laminated.

Next meeting: 14.10.22

Tuesday 27th September 2022

School Council Meeting

Present: Miss Kelly, Mrs Jeffrey
Year 1 – present
Year 2 – present
Year 3 – present
Year 4 – present
Year 5 – present
Year 6 – present

1. EJ spoke with the School Council members about the Eco Schools Club Rebrand

• Plastic Sculpture – EJ showed examples of plastic sculptures using recycled materials.
• OW – treasure chest with gigantic shark hovering over chest.
• CD – suggested themes could be adopted by different classes or year groups
• EJ suggested as homework council could bring in ideas to next meeting.

2. MK spoke with the children about the new lunchtime rules and suggestions that management would like discussed to get the School Council members’ views on.

• School Lunchtime Staff to be on website was agreed on by all members as an excellent idea.
• Game of the week – discussed and well received by council as it was seen as inclusive while also giving children lots of options during playtime.
• CD suggested each class gets to vote on a ‘Game of the Week’ using ballot boxes.
• Lunch time rules: discussed and the members agreed with all of the new lunchtime rules.
• New lunch time ideas included; play buddies re-introduced – discussed sashes used previously didn’t work and suggestions for vests/jackets to be used instead.
• Litter-monitors suggested to keep on top of the rubbish being thrown/left on the ground – EJ explained school would be getting bins so children and adults could sort waste in food waste (to be collected by special company) and other non food waste
• Game zones -limited to a number of people to prevent overcrowding but a very good idea to prevent accidents.
• Spectator bench so some children can enjoy the games being played

3. A.O.B.
• School council badges given out.
• School council ideas to go into class school council book. MK to action.

Next meeting is with Mr Schumm on Monday 3rd October 2022