School Council

Welcome to our School Council

We would like to introduce you to our new School Council group for 2017 – 2018.

At Tow Law Millennium Primary School we have an outstanding School Council group who are a credit to our school. Our School Council group is made up of two children from year groups 1 to 6. During induction week in the summer term, each year group votes for their new School Councillors. This is done by a student vote and really means that the School Council are representing the ‘pupil voice’.

 

The School Council meet once every week during lunchtime. Older children within the group lead the meetings including taking minutes and distributing activities to other children.

 

Our School Councillors are very proud of being a member of the group and made the following comments about being a School Councillor:

• ‘It’s really fun fundraising for things in school’.
• ‘It’s really nice coming together to read things from the suggestion box from the children in our classes. Sometimes we go up on the stage in assembly and we tell the children what we have been doing’.
• ‘We like to think about suggestions; if we should or shouldn’t do it’.
• ‘It is very fun being a School Councillor because we get to fundraise for lots of different charities. We discuss about what we can do for the school. We also prepare for the school fairs’.

2017 – 2018 projects

Our School Councillors have been extremely busy so far this academic year. One of their main projects so far has been creating a ‘school prayer’. This will be said before the Lord’s Prayer during assemblies. The School Council have consulted with the rest of the pupils and the staff several times to create a school prayer that everyone is happy with. The result is fantastic and they are now in the process of creating a display of the prayer for the hall.

The School Councillors are also working with Taylor Shaw and Durham County Council staff to discuss school dinners. This also includes planning special themed dinner days and we are really looking forward to our ‘Royal Day’ in June.

For the summer term, our School Councillors are developing ideas to raise funds towards a performance stage on our KS2 yard in memory of Mrs Little, one of our lunchtime supervisors.

2016 – 2017 projects

The first project of the academic year in September was dedicated to the sponsorship of the Guide Dog Puppies. This year’s School Councillors were continuing the work from the brilliant fundraising completed by the previous group and the Buddies. The children were very excited to receive information about the puppies they are sponsoring. The names of the puppies are: Lexi, Zac and Una. All children in school will receive ‘Pupdates’ with stickers about the progress of the puppies and the things that they get up to.

The School Councillors planned the Halloween parties for EYFS/KS1 and KS2. They decided on the games and created prizes for the winners (deciding very sensibly which prizes were appropriate for EYFS, KS1 or KS2).

 

The School Councillors ran a stall at the Christmas Fayre. They also helped out with the raffle and many tasks around the hall.

During spring 1st half term, the School Councillors have been focused on raising money to put towards our grand total for new EYFS/KS1 and KS2 playground markings. They came up with the idea to have a raffle during celebrations assembly, ‘guess how many sweets in the jar’ and ‘name the teddies’. They wrote a letter explaining to parents what they were planning to do and then two of our UKS2 School Councillors went round the classes each day with their fundraising ideas to collect money and take guesses of names and numbers of sweets. Our School Councillors did a fantastic job and raised a massive amount of £176.20 to add towards our fundraising total for the playground markings.

 

The playground markings have now been completed on both yards and the School Councillors have been outside to give them a go!

 

Our school council are currently thinking of ways to fundraise for a bigger chick coop.

 

2015 – 2016 projects

 

The year began with a community project culminating in a beautiful ‘Flower Festival’ in St Philip’s and St James’ Church, Tow Law. The School Councillors worked alongside a local school to create flower decorations for the end of the pews which were on show during the festival.

During Autumn 2nd half term, our whole school worked with a local artist, Alison Diamond, on a community project. All children within the school contributed towards the art project. Once it was completed, the School Councillors went to the Community Centre and took part in the art project celebration with other local primary and secondary schools.

As we moved towards Christmas, the School Councillors became involved in the European Christmas Tree Decoration Exchange Project organised by Europe Direct. The project is focused on making links with schools across Europe through the traditions and cultures of Christmas. Children from KS1 made the decorations during art lessons and children from upper KS2 created an information booklet to accompany the decorations during IT lessons. Once this was all complete, the School Councillors helped to put the parcels together. They are now enjoying seeing parcels from schools across Europe arriving in school. The children have helped to create a display in school and have decorated our ‘European Christmas Tree’.

The School Council had several projects running which flowed into Spring term. They met with the “eXtreme Group” and discussed how our school could be improved in terms of accessibility. They showed the young people around school and talked to them about improvements.

During Spring and Summer term, the school council have been very busy doing refreshments at school events to raise money to extend the KS2 trim trail and get bike track markings for EYFS and KS1 playground.

The School Council took part in a community celebration for the Queen’s 90th birthday. They organised a teddy tombola for the day at the Millennium Green; writing a letter for teddy donations, labelling the teddies with raffle tickets, attending the party and then counting the money back in school.

During summer term, the School Council worked alongside the Buddies to fundraise money through a sponsored walk. The focus of the walk was to allow the groups to sponsor a puppy guide dog. They raised the brilliant grand total of £389.07. Thank you to everyone who supported the children.

The School Councillors are an absolute pleasure to work with. They are dedicated, eager and passionate about improving our school. Well done School Councillors for all your hard work and good luck for your future projects!