We love to hear what you and your School Council are doing.

• Have you put a particular project in place?

• Have you raised money to improve your school?

• Have you set up a new sub-committee or group to help with well-being? For example, Buddies or Peer Mentors.

• Have you worked hard to change the school environment?

• Did you do something special before Christmas to improve Community Cohesion?

• Have you started a School Council Enterprise Scheme?

Whatever you are doing, you can be sure that other School Councils would find it interesting and inspiring.  We are often asked what other School Councils are doing, so that new ideas can be formed.

If you would like to let us know, then please do write an article of about 500 words and send it to us, together with some photos, and we’ll send it round to about 30,000 school contacts in one of our e-newsletters.  There’s an added benefit too….. every School Council that has an article published will receive a £50 voucher to spend on our great resources!

What are you waiting for?  Get scribbling now and send it to me at sallypage@schoolcouncils.org

Your question to me on Twitter (@schoolcouncils) was “We presently have a project ongoing with our local Comprehensive school to improve community cohesion.  We should link in?”

Very strongly, part of what school councils are about is linking to local and other communities.  They are encouraged to link to youth councils; town, borough and district  councils.  Many school councils organise social visits to old folks homes, especially at this time of year.  I can’t comment on your local schools but emphatically the answer is yes on this score

Another area for school councils is that of Health and Wellbeing.  This includes anti-bullying of the physical or cyber kind.  Wellbeing also reaches into transport and whether the children and young people feel safe coming to school and going home.  Very much your territory.  So emphatically the answer is yes on this score too. 

I am not aware of your local conditions, but it seems to me that  in some areas there is a need for the healing of rifts between between the police as a whole and young people.  If this should apply in your part of the country, I would invite you to think of school councils as  an ideal channel into the school community to enable that healing to take place.  Again, the answer is emphatically yes.

In the round, therefore, there is nothing to be lost and everything to be gained from police services nationally linking to school councils and from there into the wider school community

Good luck!  Let us know how you get on.

However, we would like to clarify a few points!

This fantastic new handbook is a re-write and re-design of the old School Council Handbook for Primary Pupils.  It has been brought up to date with current ideas and refreshed with new sections, illustrations and helpful Morphs! 

IT DOES NOT REPLACE THE KS1 AND PRIMARY SCHOOL COUNCIL TOOLKITS. 

Our Toolkits are designed for use by Teachers who are setting up and supporting School Councils within their school.  These comprehensive books give advice and guidance for both Teacher and Pupil sessions covering ideas such as Circle Time, Charters of Behaviour, Peer Mediation, Writing an Agenda and even music for School Council songs.

The School Council Handbook for Primary Pupils has been designed to be given to each member of the School Council to help them understand and fulfil the important role they have been elected to.  It gives advice on such areas as research, fundraising, issues and inclusion.  The Handbook is not intended for use as a teaching tool within a citizenship lesson.  It is a special Handbook aimed at helping each School Councillor work as part of a team to assist their School Council be the best channel possible for Pupil Voice within their school.

SchCouncilForum : For School Councillors, Link Teachers and other interested parties, to pool ideas, news and chat.

SchoolCouncils : School councils turn pupil voice into action and schools into communities. We support pupils, staff and others to create effective, whole school, participation