What is it? Why should I consider being a member?
A School Council is a group of people elected to discuss and analyse various school issues and project ideas and to come up with practical solutions for improvement of pupils’ education and opportunities. This group will have a major impact on our school! They will be the voice of the students, representing their views and putting them forward to school leaders and governors.
What is a Rep?
Reps are elected by the students in their year group to represent the people who elected them.
- They act as a link for their year group and other groups associated with the school (teachers, support staff, parents, Board of Governors, EANI etc).
- Reps have to be willing and able to put forward other people’s views.
So if I were a rep what would I actually have to do?
As a rep you have four main jobs:
- Considering the views of your year group and discussing them at school council meetings.
- Letting your year group know what goes on in the meetings you attend.
- aking an active part in meetings.
- Coming up with initiatives / ideas to bring about school improvement
To do these jobs well you should have regular talks with form classes, gather views from questionnaires / suggestion boxes, listen to concerns and issues and note them down. Remember that not everyone likes talking in front of a class, so you need to be approachable in other ways. Make it clear that people can talk to you at break / lunch times. You will then need to put forward your year group views at junior / senior council or whole school council meetings.
You are the link between the council and your year group so you need to let them know what happened in the meetings, any decisions that were made or questions that need to be asked. It’s your job to let people know that their ideas are being taken seriously.
You need to be prepared to go to meetings and make yourself heard, but also be willing to listen and discuss. Remember, you are there to represent all the different points of view that people in your year may have, so you need to spend time listening and be flexible enough to put across a range of opinions.
Where do I sign up?
This year we will have 2 student councils –
- Junior Council for YR 8-12 pupils
- Senior Council for YR 13-14 pupils
The Junior Council will be made up of 3 students per year group.
The Senior Council will be made up of 8-10 students, who may also perform the role of House Captain for their respective house.
Your form tutor will have applications for Student Council that you complete if you’d like to be considered. These should be filled in and left into the school office. Mrs Jackson will then use these to shortlist candidates for each year group.
The deadline for applications is Friday 28th September.
Here is the application form for the being a rep.
After shortlisting manifestos will be published online and on plasma screens around school so that pupils can see what each candidate offers and decide which person they think would best represent them. However, the manifestos will be blind, no names, pictures etc to indicate who wrote them. This way, people will not vote for friends but for the best person for the job.
Guidance for writing your manifesto
There will then be an election day on Thursday 4th October, where each year group will come to the assembly hall at an allocated time to make their votes. The successful candidates will be notified on Friday 5th October.