School Council and Pupil Voice

The School Council

Our wonderful school council is made up of enthusiastic and democratically elected representatives from Key Stages 1 and 2. We meet regularly with Mrs Marshall and often invite Mr Allen and the pastoral team to share our ideas and views and make plans for future projects.

In the past we have worked on projects such as the building of the MUGA in October 2018, improving signage around the playground and increasing the variety of playground equipment.

2023-2024

Autumn Term

Our new members were elected and have begun meeting regularly. We began the year by thinking about ways we could help encourage children to attend school. After lots of ideas, we decided to put forward the idea of a weekly voucher for children who have had 100% attendence that week. The leadership team were really impressed with this and now, a £5 amazon voucher is presented weekly to a child chosen at random who has achieved 100% attendence.

We were also asked to think about our playgrounds and how we can ensure children are able to use these safely. During our meetings we worked on rules for the KS1, KS2 playgrounds and the MUGA. We presented these to the children during KS1 and KS2 assemblies and are looking to have these printed on weatherproof signs in the playgrounds.

2022-2023

We began the year by deciding to look at anti-bullying and worked on developing our own slogan to use. In the words of one of our councillors: 'We want to ensure everyone knows that bullying is not acceptable at William Stockton.'

We then organised Odd Sock day to celebrate everyone's differences during Anti-bullying week. On Tuesday 15th November we wrote and delivered an informative and exciting assembly to the Key Stage 2 children about Anti-Bullying. 

In the Spring Term we were approached by our catering team who wanted us to gather information about potential new menu items for school lunches. We held class council meetings to get pupil voice in individual classes and then brought this back to a whole school council meeting. We are looking forward to sampling some of these meals in the near future!

In February we were saddended to hear the news of the Earthquakes in Turkey and Syria. We have many families at William Stockton who have relatives in both Turkey and Syria. We wanted to do something to support the people affected so we organised a non uniform day and asked for donations of tinned goods, sanitary items and nappies. Our community amazed us with their generosity and we helped pack up our school mini bus to take the donations to a central point so they could be delivered to survivors in Turkey and Syria.

In the Summer Term we worked together to write a school reflection that will be used in assembly time, as well as in class. We had to think carefully about the values of our school and the things we wanted to celebrate about our wonderful school community.

What do our pupils say about being involved in the school council?

• 'It means I get a say in what happens at our school. I like having the responsibility.' (Year 4 pupil October 2022)

• ''It's the best thing that's ever happened (being in the school council.) You feel like you have some control over what happens.' (Year 5 pupil October 2022)

• 'It can be serious sometimes when you have to discuss things like antibullying but I know it could help other people.' (Year 6 pupil October 2022)

• 'It's fun and it's really worthwhile.' (Year 3 pupil October 2022) 

What do our pupils say? 

• 'I think the school is safe and I enjoy being at school.' (Year 5 pupil November 2022)
   
• 'I love this school and learn a new thing everyday!' (Year 5 pupil November 2022)
   
• 'The residential visits here are awesome!' (Year 6 pupil January 2021)
   
• 'The teachers make our learning fun! If we don't get it, we ask them and they help us' (Year 3 Pupil November 2022)
   
• 'Our teachers keep us safe and look after us' (Year 1 pupil October 2022)
   
• 'Bullying is when someone, every day, is  repeatedly being mean to someone' (Year 5 pupil October 2022)
   
•  'Our school council makes decisions for our school....and they are good ones!' (Year 4 pupil July 2022)