School Council
The Glen Park School Council is made up of 12 pupils from years 1-6. Each child was elected by the members of their year group to be their representative. The children attend regular meetings to discuss key areas that have been prioritised for the school this year.
Priorities for 2015- 2016
To elect new school council members democratically.
To set up a school business run by the pupils.
To devise a set of new school rules.
To run a fundraising event for a charity of our choice.
July 2016
Glen Park's Got Talent
On Tuesday 12th July, the school came together for 'Glen Park's Got Talent'. There were 18 acts from year groups 1-6 which performed a variety of acts from singing and dancing to gymnastics and comedy. The children were all very brave and took to the stage like professionals. With a bit of help from a lighting and music crew, we all had an enjoyable evening. The event was set up by the school council to raise money for charity, they have chosen to give the proceeds to St Luke Hospice. On Monday 18th July, Nina from St Luke's Hospice came in to speak to the school council to explain what they do and to thank them for their fundraising efforts.
June 2016
Plymouth City Youth Council
Mrs Tucker took a group of 4 school council members to the Plymouth City Youth Council meeting on 13th June. The meeting was led by Jono Madeley, the Leadership Associate for Learning and Communities at Plymouth City Council, who explained the agenda for the day. He then introduced the Acting Principal Leadership Advisor Mr David Bowles, who explained to the children how the views of pupils can influence changes to their experience of education. They also had a chance to discuss how they would have the opportunity to vote for the City Youth Council chair and vice chair for upcoming quarterly meetings. We are very pleased to announce that Glen Park will chair the December 2016 meeting. In the afternoon, Jenny Coles from Plymouth Energy Community discussed with the children how being a member of the City Youth Council can have a massive effect on climate change and eco matters as they will be thinking about how young people and their schools can make a difference by selecting good energy choices. All the children thoroughly enjoyed taking part and look forward to the next meeting.
March- May 2016
New School Rules
The school Councillors were set a challenge by Mr Hutchings to come up with a new set of golden rules as the old ones were now about 10 years old. We felt it was important to get the views and opinions of the whole school community so, after asking permission from Mr Hutching's, we attended a staff meeting and invited governors along. We collected some ideas and asked the teachers if we could be allowed some time to chat to our classes, which they agreed. We spent time time chatting to the members of our class to get their opinions and then brought all the feedback to a school council meeting. Taking all of this in to account, we devised 8 golden rules that we were all happy with and put them in to a questionnaire. We then went, armed with clip boards, to meet the parents at the end of a school day. We asked them to choose 5 out of the 8 rules that they felt were the most important and then we spent some time analysing the results.
We can now reveal the new school rules for Glen Park Primary School are;
We respect each other and our school property.
We treat other how we want to be treated.
Honesty is the best policy.
We are kind, helpful and caring.
We try our best in all we do and persevere.
March 2016
Trip to the Houses of Parliament
We were very lucky to be given the opportunity to travel to London to have a tour of the Houses of Parliament. After a lot of waiting on the phone by the ladies in the office, we were booked in for Friday 4th March. We left early and arrived at a very sunny London around lunchtime. We had just enough time to stretch our legs and went for a short walk to Downing street. After a brief chat with the guards and a look at 'number 10', we wondered though St James' Park and past Westminster Abbey and then we were ready for our tour to begin. We were met by our tour guides and taken to a room to watch a very interesting 360 degree video all about the history of the Houses of Parliament. We then were lucky enough to see some of the 1200 rooms within this very historical building. These included the Queen's robing room, where she dresses in her finest robes to attend the opening of the new year of parliament. We were also very excited to see the House of Lords and the House of commons and learn about some of the rules that need to be followed during parliament debates. We were all impressed by the beauty of the building with all its ornate detailing and impressive pieces of art work that tell a story of its history. The children were brilliant and learnt so much, they asked very relevant and inquisitive questions. It was a long day but lots of fun and something I'm sure they will never forget.
January 2016
The healthy tuck shop is open for business
Thanks to the support of the 'Friends of Glen Park' we were able to buy a trolley and our first tuck shop order from 'Fruit2Suit'. It was decided by the school council members that the tuck shop would be open to Key stage 2 only as Key stage 1 were provided with fruit and initially it would be open on one day only. The tuck shop opened on 15th January and was, and continues to be very popular with queues across the playground. The school council are running the tuck shop with a little bit of help from Mrs Johns, Miss Pugh and Mrs Staniforth and are learning how to analyse sales to understand which items are successful and what needs to be ordered each week. If there have been any slow moving products, it was decided by school council to conduct free taster sessions which has been successful in improving sales.
Oct / Nov 2015
Our Business- A healthy tuck shop
After some discussion, the school council decided to set up a healthy tuck shop, which will provide healthy snacks at break times.
A company called ‘Fruit2suit’ came to school with a variety of snacks and worked with the children to help them to think about how the business will work, this included learning about different roles, responsibilities, marketing and finance.
October 2015
Polling Day
Every child was given a chance to stand to be a school council representative. They had to be clear on their ideas of how to improve the practices of the school and share this with their peers.
On election day, each class came to vote anonymously at our ‘polling station’ which was fully equipped with polling booths. The votes were counted carefully and the school councillors were announced in assembly.
October 2015
Democracy
We had a visit from Gary Streeter, our local MP, who talked to all members of the school during an assembly about his role and how he been elected.
Following our visit, the children were asked to spend some time in class talking about what a school council member needs to do to be elected.
Gary was successfully elected following a campaign trail, in which he had to make clear the causes he felt strongly about. Each class discussed the upcoming school council elections and were told to consider that if they were successfully voted in as a school council representative, what would they like to change or improve about the school? They were set the following tasks to prepare for the elections.
Years 3 and 4- Discuss as class some areas that they feel need improving and why. Children to create a campaign poster to explain this to promote what they stand for.
Year 5 and 6- Discuss as class some areas that they feel need improving and why. Children to create a speech that outlines their causes and their suggested improvements.
Parliament Workshops
Following this, key stage 2 took park in parliament workshops where they learnt a lot about how the country’s big decisions are made. Roz Birch from Education Services talked to children about House of Commons, where they sit opposite eachother to have debate and they practised voting with their feet. We will be using this knowledge later in the year to think about how we can adapt and improve our school rules.
