School Council
Meet the School Council for 24/25
School Council 2024/25 Social Signature Project
School Councillors - Democracy in Action!
Our School Councillors have been voted in by their peers this week.
Our first meeting was full of great ideas: a Y5 councillor has already suggested high netting on the Junior Football Pitch to stop footballs going over the fence: Mr Cooney is busy looking at ways to implement this. “I feel I’ve just gained 10 new bosses,” said Mr Cooney with a wry smile as he opened up today.
We want our School Councillors to ‘make a difference’ this year, both in school and in our brilliant Bootle community, and that’s where our Social Signature project comes in.
Social Signature Project
“Our Social Signature is the mark we leave on other people’s lives, our community and parish,ourselves and the world around us.” - Dr. Peter Hawkins, Windmills Foundation
The Windmills Foundation is a charity who believe the power is within us all to
accomplish infinitely more than we might think is possible and by believing in yourself and your capacity to do good, good things happen. This brilliant organisaiton has created the ‘Social Signature’ project for schools so children can be part of this vision.
This year, our school council will help us drive our Social Signature project. This project will have a different goal each half term where our pupils show they can make a difference. The project has six key areas that we will return to throughout the year: Learning; Safety; Poverty; Environment; Health and Relationships.
Autumn Social Signature Project: Giving a Helping Hand (Learning)
As part of “Learning” we will focus on “Giving a Helping Hand” this half term. Each School Councillor will lead a project for their class, either in school, at home or in our local parish. Nursery, Reception and Year 1 will also take part in this exciting project.
Y6 School Councillor, Nell: “6L’s ideas include, helping parents tidy the house and complete chores for a whole week; helping new pupils settle in; a class fundraiser to help Alder Hey. The class will vote to choose one of these: I can’t wait to see what project we will use to ‘give a helping hand’ in 6L.”
It is a key part of our mission in St Monica’s to empower our pupils to understand that they have the power to make a difference in our world. Once your child’s class have voted on their project, the class teacher will send out a letter outlining this half term’s project for the class.
We will celebrate each project in our end of half term assembly, which we will stream so families can watch. This project extends to Nursery to Year 1, we want this project to empower all of our children. Why not discuss ways your child can give a helping hand at home over the weekend? If you send in a photo to the office, your child will win a Mindset Award.
Social Signature Letter
The School Council at St Monica's serves as a valuable platform within a school community for several reasons:
Student Involvement: Our School Council allows students to become more involved in the decision-making processes of the school. This empowers them to have a say in how their school is run and fosters a sense of ownership and responsibility.
We Respect Pupil Voice: Our School Council school respects and values the thoughts and opinions of the wider pupil base: the council ensures that children's voices are heard and considered.
Enhancing Communication: Our School Council provides a structured channel for students to communicate their feelings, concerns, and ideas to teachers in St Monica's.
Skill Development: Being part of the School Council allows students to develop essential skills such as confidence, communication, negotiation, and teamwork. Our pupils learn how to express their views effectively and represent the views of their peers.
Promoting British Values: Our School Council encourages students to understand and respect fundamental British values: democracy, the rule of law, individual liberty, and mutual respect and tolerance. Through the council, students experience democracy in action as they elect their representatives.
Contribution to School Improvement: Our School Council actively contributes to improving the school environment and experience for both students and teachers. Our school council propose ideas for positive changes and work towards implementing them as an effective team.
Events and Initiatives: Our council organises and participate in events and initiatives that benefit the school community, such as fundraising for causes like Remembrance Day or promoting awareness and learning about important topics like Black History Month.
As for who would make a good school councillor, qualities like being a good listener, friendly, a team player, having a willingness to contribute, representing the views of others and being a good communicator are key. These qualities are important because school councillors at St Monica's need to effectively convey the concerns and ideas of their peers and collaborate with others to achieve common goals.
The School Council plays a significant role in fostering student engagement, enhancing the school environment, and teaching students important life skills such as leadership, communication, and civic responsibility.
Meet the new School Council, 2021-2022.
The first School Council meeting was held on the 14th October 2021.
The children introduced themselvesto the group. School Council badges were given to the children at the following Key Stage 2 assembly. They all felt very proud!
The School Council at St Monica's; as part of the Strand Partnership Initiative is continuing to focus on the subject; "How can we help to keep our communities safe?"
To that end we invited Mr John Toker, Travel awareness and safety officer for Sefton, to speak to our Year One and Two children in the Mini Hall about Road Safety.
He told the children about the Green Cross Code and how they should follow the code to help them cross the road safely. The Year One children, with the supervision of their teachers, will then practise crossing the road safely on the road outside school.
In addition, The Crossing Patrol lady, Jan Tayler, was also invited to speak to the children. She was delighted to have the opportunity to meet the children and she told us how much she enjoyed her job as everyone was so friendly.
As a follow up to the meeting, Year One have been given the opportunity to enter a competition to design the best road safety banner for our school.
The School Council will then carefully choose the best design to be sent to a graphic design company, who will produce a P.V.C banner to be displayed at the school entrance gate.
LETTER FROM THE SCHOOL COUNCIL - HOW WE CAN HELP KEEP OUR COMMUNITIES SAFE - ROAD SAFETY AROUND SCHOOL
On Thursday 27th January 2022, two representatives from the School Council attended the first Strand Partnership meeting of the academic year. The meeting was held at English Martyrs Primary School.
The Strand Partnership is a group of schools who meet to discuss a variety of initiatives which affect the local area. The group haven't met for the last few years due to the global pandemic. However it's now been able to recommence with some safe guarding proceedures put in place.
The project for discussion this year is: "How can our communities keep us safe?"
The meeting was attended by Ward Coucillors, who provided answers and gave us some suggestions on how we can implement this initiative.
A further meeting has been arranged for later on in the Spring Term to present ideas, we have implemented.
We're working hard as School Councillors to present suggestions to the school to help us answer the project's question.
On Monday 20th January, the School Council lead their first whole assembly on British values. The first topic covered was ‘Democracy’. The assembly described what democracy was and how we elect our representatives to lead us in our country. The assembly included ideas on how we can participate in democracy and how we elect school councillors using a voting system.
The School Council have worked on the Strand Partnership project entitled ‘Employability’. They have attended numerous events at Crosby Lakeside which culminated in a celebration event on 20th June 2019. The School Council presented a Powerpoint presentation on the work they have done this year. They presented an assembly in front of the whole school to introduce the topic. Several companies were then invited into school to help the children. The event was organised by Mrs Gibney a parent of St Monica's. we wish to thank her and ‘Arriva Buses’, QVC jewellery, Morgan Sindall a construction company and Agent Marketing a web design company. Year 5 enjoyed learning about how the different companies operate. We were also joined by St Robert Bellamine School. The children had employability passports which the companies kindly contributed. The passports also included leaflets and gifts.
