King's Hedges Educational Federation

School Council

King’s Hedges Educational Federation School Council

AT KHEF we believe in listening to the voices and views of our pupils. ‘Pupil Voice’ is important to us. Our School Council is made up of a group of children elected by their peers. Voting takes place after pupils have put themselves forward, usually with a short speech that showcases their qualifications relevant to the position. Representatives often have their own ideas about how they would like to improve the school and they are keen to work with others, including the Senior Leadership Team, as well as wearing their badge with pride. Weekly meetings involve sharing working on tasks, collecting information, sharing viewpoints and explaining what they see happening in the school in their particular year group.

Some of our school councillors were lucky to have a meeting with MP Daniel Zeichner, where they talked about life in politics and inspiring the next generation.

Recycling.

We have looked at recycling in school and reminded classes about using their pen refill pots. Really old, broken pens can now be recycled-using the box in the Curriculum Room.

BBC Children In Need

We organised an amazing day at school.

In the morning we had a really fun assembly based on ‘Portrait Artist of the Year’ The SC reps who painted did a fabulous job. The school raised over £460, although we did not have to do very much. Thank you!

Tidying the Upper Courtyard. A handful of us pulled up some weeds and dug over some of the containers. We planted a few evergreen plants, some purple and yellow pansies, some seeds that Leesha had collected, and lots of bulbs. The bulbs will start to come through after Christmas. The new outdoor storage unit is great for storing trowels, gloves etc. We put away random things left in the courtyard.

Games. We were asked about games popular on the playground and also to think about reminding pupils that we don’t play any type of ‘war’ game and neither to we tag people and run off.

Marking. The SLT asked us to think about what type of marking we thought was beneficial for learning and what type of marking we just enjoyed reading. Smiley faces, merits and lots of ticks were our favourites. Comments were useful, but pupils prefer them not to be too long. An improvement point was thought to be a good idea as everyone wants to steadily improve our work and focussing on one thing worked well. Peer marking was fun, but the pupils felt that they needed more guidance about how to do this. They did not like their lovely work having a badly written comment on it!

CUFC delivered an assembly on banter/anti-bullying. We thought that the message about banter slipping into bullying was a new one, and was good to know.

Enhancement week. This had a thumbs up from everyone. Great fun, really enjoyed the books and linking work to each book. It was fun to have parents/carers in to look at folders. More of these please.

Peer mediators. School Council felt that Peer Mediators were a good idea, but were not always used to best advantage. A little more training for everyone to know exactly what the PMs can do to help us, plus the PM themselves giving a bit more time to careful consideration of how best to bring about reconciliation or compromise.

Learning about healthy relationships

Egs we have been involved with: pants rule, network of safety, friendship, trust, assertiveness, responsibilities, team, growing up, changes, risk, influence…

The feedback from classes was that everyone had enjoyed and learnt from ‘Pantosaurus’, and the fact that this is done in Nursery we thought was excellent. It felt like this was ongoing learning. A lot of different lessons go on throughout the school regarding healthy relationships. Sometimes these are specifically taught, and sometimes they come up in class or at the beginning of the term. Assemblies, visitors (GN8, NSPCC, Mental Health ladies; all were good.