Our School Council is made up of two children from each year group. Each year an election is held at the end of the school year to prepare for the next term of council.
During this, children are encouraged to create campaign speeches to give in front of their class showing what would make them a suitable candidate for the job. Pupils are then given ballot papers and take part in a blind vote to choose their next class council representative.
Once the Council has been chosen they then take part in two weeks of training sessions. During these we look at what makes a School Council successful and how they are run. We show the different jobs that can be given and explain each one of those too. The Council then hold a second election amongst themselves to fill the role of Chair Person, Vice Chair, Secretary and Treasurer. Once these are selected the Chair and Vice Chair Person takes over the job of running each meeting. The Secretary is in charge each week of writing up minutes of what is discussed and the Treasurer is responsible for financial decisions the council make. Each week the councillors meet for 20 minutes to discuss matters that the pupils have raised in their classrooms and try and find solutions to help their problems.
Since starting School Council, the children have created school pride by holding a Yavneh Flag competition, raised over £1000 for Water Aid, raised awareness of recycling throughout the school, designed and implemented suggestion boxes for each key stage and are currently working on an exciting way to mark the end of our first year of being a full school at Yavneh.