What is the School Council?
A school council provides a meaningful way in which pupils can voice their opinions and have their views taken into account in decisions that impact upon them. Article 12 of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (UNCRC) -Respect for views of the child.
At St Anthony’s Catholic Primary School, our school council is a group of children that represents the views of all our pupils. It gives our children the opportunity to have their voices heard and be part of the whole school community. They help to makes decisions about school life and organise projects that support learning and development, such as organising charity events, theme days or representing the school at outside events.
We value the opinions of our pupils and our school council gives pupils a forum to share these opinions with our school council teacher representative, Headteacher and other members of staff.
Who are the School Council representatives?
A new school council is elected each year and is made up of 2 representatives from each class from Reception through to Year 6. All school council representatives are elected by their peers at the beginning of each academic year.
Miss E Clarke – School Council (Teacher representative)
I am very proud to lead our School Council. We have amazing children in our school who have lots of great ideas on how we can work together to make a better school. They do all the hard work and like to get involved as much as possible…making my job a bit easier! Our motto at St Anthony’s is: Helping every child to find their voice. We have children from Year 6 all the way down to Reception. We want to make sure that all children’s voices are heard in our school. We meet regularly to discuss ideas and events. I am very fortunate to work with a great group of children this year and I know we are going to achieve a lot for our school!
School Council Assembly – October
Our school council wanted to hold an assembly about the British Values to ensure everyone is happy, healthy and safe in school. The children chose to play the National Anthem whilst classes entered the hall and then they spoke about how each value has a positive effect on our community and went into detail about how we already show the British Values in school. Our school councillors finished the assembly by asking everyone to make choices that reflect our British Values and then held a quick quiz to understand how much their audience had learnt.
School Council Assembly – Mental Health Day
On Tuesday 10th October, the school council chose to raise awareness for Young People’s Mental Health Day in partnership with MIND. The charity asked school workers and children to wear a yellow (bright colour) accessory to ‘brighten someone’s day’ and to ‘stand out’. Thank you for supporting us with this!
The school council hosted a short assembly on Tuesday 10th October at 9:00AM for the whole school to attend. The school council asked that classes come away from their timetable for at least an hour of the day to discuss the importance of mental health and address ‘trusted adults’ within school and at home. The children have completed mindfulness activities.
The children will leave assembly with a ‘homework with a difference’ activity so please ensure this goes home with the children at the end of the day. There is no expectation for this to return to school. The video below will explain, and this will be used during the assembly.
https://www.itv.com/britaingettalking/?gclid=EAIaIQobChMIgL2-2rfagQMVkfDtCh1RgQfKEAAYASAAEgL18_D_BwE
It is vital that we support the children to understand the importance of mental health and how we can support them on Tuesday and every day of the year. This is something the school council are really passionate about.
The Queen’s Green Canopy
We have been chosen to take part in the Queen’s Green Canopy project and had a visit from the Deputy Lieutenant of Lancashire on 1st March 2022 for the official planting ceremony.
The Queen’s Green Canopy (QGC) is a tree planting initiative created to mark Her Majesty’s
Platinum Jubilee in 2022 which invites people from across the UK, including individuals, schools or entire cities, to “Plant a Tree for the Jubilee”, which will benefit future generations and create a legacy in honour of The Queen’s leadership.
London Adventure 2022
In March 2022 a group of Year 5 and 6 children visited our capital city, London. During the visit they has a tour of the Houses of Parliament, Buckingham Palace, Horse Guards Parade, a Thames River Cruise to see the sights, a tour of the Tower of London and saw The Lion King. A trip of a life time and a wonderful memory maker.