School Council
Brightside Nursery Infant School Council is made up of 12 pupils from year 1 and year 2. Two reception children also join in the spring term. In the autumn term, every pupil votes for who they would like to be a council member from each class. The votes are then counted and the School Council is formed. The School Council meet every two weeks with Mrs Batham to discuss current school issues. They then report issues and discussions back to their classes every two weeks in class council.
The School Council present the outcomes of their meetings to the KS1 pupils and Headteacher every two weeks in the Monday assembly.
2023/2024
In the autumn term Mrs Batham will visit each classroom in KS1 to discuss the school council roles. The children will vote for new members of school council.
Here they are above! Our fantastic school council for 2023 - 2024.
Autumn 1 2023/24 - In our first meeting we discussed how they had been elected by their friends to represent them. The children received their special lanyard to wear and had their photos taken so everyone knows who they are! We talked about the fantastic work last years school council had done for us in school. The children are really excited to get started and can't wait for their first class council.
As this half term comes to an end, the school council are really settling into their roles in school. They are enjoying their class council meetings and are fabulous at reporting back and discussing issues with Mrs Batham. In our school council meetings we talked about the word 'elected' and what it means. We explored what it means to have been 'voted' for and the concept of fairness. The children were excited to introduce themselves to the parents at our harvest festival and thanked everyone for their support and their kind donations to a local foodbank. Everyone was very impressed with their confident speaking voices! The final task for this term was to consult with their classes on some rules for the new outdoor library and ways we could use it to further support reading in school. We can't wait to meet again next half term.
Autumn 2 2023/24 - Our first school council meeting of the term was very busy. We had some big decisions to make and lots to feed back on from our class councils.
We looked at all the suggestions for rules for our outdoor library and school council then chose the best five. We will be making some posters for the outdoor library and introducing the chosen rules with our friends. We are also looking for two librarians to help on Friday mornings in the outdoor library. Application forms to follow!
The school council then made the final decisions on the activities and themes for Children In Need day on Friday 17th November. The children can choose whether to wear pyjamas or wear Pudsey bear merchandise eg t-shirts, headbands etc. The children also decided to have a disco party on the Friday afternoon and will be discussing what kind of party games the children want to play with their class councils next week. Please see the separate newsletter for more details.
We are very excited for our Children In Need day and hope we raise lots of money for charity.
After our great Children In Need day we were straight on with other jobs in school. On Friday 24th November, in celebration assembly, school council picked two names out of the hat to see who were the lucky winners of the two Disney on Ice family tickets. The names in the draw were all children who had achieved excellent school attendance. The children in school all watched to see who the lucky winners were. More details about the winners are on the school app.
We have also been putting up our rules for the outdoor library. Class councils will be discussing them in their meetings. See if you can spot them when you come to change your books on Friday!
We have also shortlisted our applications for school librarians. School council voted for their favourite candidate by using cubes to mark their preference. We talked about fairness and we also made sure that we couldn't see the names on the applications. We have chosen a librarian from Y1 and another from Y2. Please check the news on our app to see the successful applicants!
Our last meeting for this term involved school council picking out the winning names for the punctuality raffle. We discussed fairness and why the children were picking out the names instead of adults in school. See the school app to find out the winners!
School council have been fabulous this term and Mrs Batham is looking forward to working with them next year in 2024!
Spring 1 2023/24 - School council were straight back to work on the first week back. The first task for this term is to find out from our classes what kind of afterschool clubs they would like to add to our offer. Next week they will consult with their classes ready to report back!
We are also excited about representatives from reception classes joining us on school council now they are settled into school. Mrs Batham and some of school council visited class 8 and 9 to tell them all about it. Happy voting next week reception! We can't wait for you to join us.
On the 26th of January the new reception school council children had their very first meeting with Mrs Batham. They spoke clearly and listened to others really well. We talked about all the ideas we had gathered from the class councils about different after school clubs we would like to see in school. There were some amazing ideas, from clubs which were focused on sports eg outdoor games club to leisure activities such as film club and jigsaw club. The children also showed how much they love learning with suggestions such as 'number club' and 'geography club'. We put the results in a table to show Mrs Mercer. This will help the school in planning future fun clubs for us all!
Spring 2 2023/24 - We had our first meeting this half term on the first week back. We voted on a theme for Red Nose Day using cubes. We decided on 'Make your nose red' and/or 'Wear something red for red Nose day'. We can't wait to raise money for this wonderful charity.
We also looked at some outdoor rules for the playground which class councils had thought about. We chose 5 and started to make a poster for outdoors. Look out for it soon!
School council had the important job of choosing the picture for Take One Picture week. This is a special week in school which involves exploring a piece of art work. Lots of exciting work based around this picture will be planned for and we will have so much fun exploring it in many different ways. Look out for this later on in the year.
School council will also be approaching class councils to find two new librarians for the summer term. We have had two fantastic librarians for the outdoor library this spring term and we would like to thank them for their hard work and dedication to the role. School council can't wait to look at your applications for summer term!
As we approach the end of the term we have been super busy picking the winners of the Egg Drop competition with Miss Fidler and Mrs Batham. We chose our favourites on behalf of all the children in the school. We discussed about fairness and we did not look at names. All entries were amazing and it was so difficult to choose. We had to negotiate with each other until we had picked the winners!
We then looked at the applications for the librarian job for the summer term. We voted using cubes. Keep a look out to find out who has been successful. Mrs Batham will speak to the new librarians early next term about their roles and responsibilities.
To finish off the term the school had an Easter Bonnet parade. School council chose four winners from each class, with all the runner ups receiving a voucher gift too for a local play area. It was such a fantastic assembly seeing everyone model their wonderful hats, dancing to the music. Have a wonderful Easter from all of us in School Council.
Summer 1 2023/24 - Our successful applicants for the summer term librarian roles started their duties on the first Friday back. They did a fantastic job. Check out the school app to see the successful candidates hard at work in the outdoor library!
This week, school council met to discuss a task for next weeks class council. The school PTA have suggested this years leavers in Y2 might like an item of clothing such as a hoody or t-shirt to mark the occasion. School council discussed the suggestion and decided to take the decision back to each of their classes. School council are going to ask their friends to make a vote on whether they think a hoody or a t-shirt would be best. We talked about the cost of clothing and the practicality of each item. School council will report back on the winning vote for each class and we will make a decision based on these results.
The results from the class council consultation regarding the leavers hoody or t-shirt are in! 4 out of 6 classes voted for a leavers t-shirt. This result will be passed onto our wonderful PTA. This week in school council we discussed the word 'opinion' and what the word means. We gave our opinions about a few key subjects and listened to each other. The school council's next task involves finding out from class council all the things the children love about the school...and also where they would like the opportunity to have pupil voice. Everyone's views and opinions are important to us at Brightside. We can't wait to read the feedback!
Summer 2 2023/24 - Today we had our first school council meeting for the term. We discussed the summer fayre and decided to get some ideas for the event from our class councils. We talked about our road safety characters outside the school - Billy and Belinda. A suggestion had been made by adults in school to change the names of the characters to reflect the different ethnicity of the pupils. The school council voted NOT to change the names as they felt the names suited the characters and that they were 'the children's names' and belonged to them.
To finish off our wonderful year as elected councillors, we received a special certificate to thank us for our efforts. We can't wait to see who gets voted in next time!