School Council - here they are! Our wonderful school council for 2024 - 2025!

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.

2024/2025

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. 

Autumn 1 2024/25

In our first meeting we discussed how they had been elected by their friends to represent them as pupil voice. 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.

Our first job was to say a big thank you to some volunteers.  We have had some fantastic work done in the forestry school woodland area by VINCI. It looks amazing. We have also had a colourful friendship bench made and painted by our volunteer friends. School council had lots to say about the bench such as 'It looks bright and beautiful' and 'If you're sat there people will notice and come and ask you to play...I did that today and made someone happy!'

The first task for school council to take to class council is to find out a bit more about school dinners for our catering staff. The children are really excited to get started and can't wait for their first class council to begin!

Our second meeting for this half term involved discussing the feedback forms for school dinners. As a school council we discussed our personal thoughts on school dinners. One member said 'I have school dinners all the time. I love them!' Another child said that 'The cheese doesn't taste the same as the cheese my nan uses so I don't like meals with cheese on'. Our school cook was delighted to receive all of our feedback forms.

Mrs Batham discussed with school council about their next job in school which is......to recruit new librarians for the outdoor library! Look out for the application forms in class!

Our last meeting for this half term  was a busy one. We shortlisted our applicants for the outdoor librarian job. We made each application anonymous and discussed about 'fairness' and why we can't always choose ourselves or our best friends. It was a very difficult job as all the applications were amazing. We used cubes to mark our votes and counted up to check for the winners. The successful applicants will be bringing home a letter from school council to confirm their appointment.

In the last school council session for this half term, we also looked at ballot voting systems and each school council member chose with a cross the theme they wanted for the upcoming Children In Need day. Look out for further details nearer the time.

Autumn 2 2024/25 -

Our first meeting back was on Children In Need day. It was wonderful to see everyone taking part and joining in with the theme chosen by school council. We all had so much fun wearing our pyjamas and/or Pudsey merchandise. We then all had a dance at our Children In Need disco.

During our meeting on Children In Need day, we chose the winners of our school Kindness Cape competition. Look out for the winners! All of the entries were fabulous. The school council were then given a task to take back to class councils. Mrs Jenkins-Omar wanted to find out what choices of breakfast foods the children would like available on Friday morning family breakfast. I'm sure the class councils will think of some really good ideas for us.

Spring 1 2024/25- Look for updates as the year progresses

Spring 2 2024/25- Look for updates as the year progresses

Summer 1 2024/25- Look for updates as the year progresses

Summer 2 2024/25- Look for updates as the year progresses

Look at what school council got up to last academic year 2023-2024!

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!