School Council Blog

Autumn Term 2 - 2016 

 Children from School Council helped to organise our shoe box appeal, alongside our Reception teacher Miss Daniels for The Rotary Club.  The children from all classes have managed to make 80 boxes in total and we have also raise almost £100 to help send them off to children who are less fortunate than us. Well done everyone!

Autumn Term 1 - 2016

School Council Member 2016 - 17

20.9.16

Today in assembly Mrs Threlkeld introduced the children to this year's School Council Members.  We talked about the role of members and how they provide a voice for the rest of their class.  Members were asked to ensure that a suggestion box is available in class for all children to contribute to. 

13.9.16

Welcome back everyone!  Classes are all in the process of voting for their new school councilors this year!  We will let you know the results soon!

Thank You!

Today children had their last School Council Meeting of the year.  They reviewed and discussed all what they have achieved this year.  They then opened the class suggestion boxes and looked at children's views across school and made a note of these in preparation for next year's council.

Children all then received a certificate and a little treat to say thank you for all their  hard work and commitment throughout the year

.

Tuesday 12th July 2016

Today we had our Masterchef competition.  We have been looking at how we can further improve lunch times and our lunchtime menu in school.  We have been liaising with  Andrew Ferguson, who is over the school kitchens and a chef from our Local Authority. Andrew has kindly been into school and met with parents to discuss school lunches and answer any questions parents might have. Following this meeting our Grange Valley Masterchef competition came about. A group of parents were given food standard and nutritional information in relation to what can and can't be used in their cooking and then were asked to come up with a recipe to enter the competition.

Yesterday parents came into our school kitchen and prepared their dishes under the watchful eye of Masterchef Andrew!  

At 3pm the dishes were prepared, cooked and ready for our celebrity judging panel to taste!   The panel consisted of Mrs Threlkeld, myself and members of our School Council.  Before the judges came into the kitchen the contestants had to leave to enable the meals to be judged anonymously . The meals were tasted and each judge gave a score out of 5.  

I was so proud of our celebrity judges for their  comments and feedback. They not only thought about their own tastes but that of the whole school.  Adam said, "I like the different combinations and I can see how other children in school would enjoy this meal, however it's just not to my personal taste because I just don't like spicy food!"

It was a very close competition and children liked elements of all the meals presented to them. They really enjoyed the chicken legs!  The overall winner was the Greek inspired, minted lamb burgers in a pocket of pitta bread with hummus. Some of the children had not tasted hummus before and they absolutely loved it!  

Andrew now has the job of including this recipe on our school dinner menu in September for all the children to enjoy.

Thank you to all parents involved and Andrew for supporting us.  

Summer Term 2016

School councilors have gathered ideas from their classes about what they would like to do for this year's PTFA  sponsored event and brought these to a meeting today. ( 4.5.16 ) Children have decided on a fantastic idea which links in nicely with our project on the Queen.

Spring Term 2016

Following our last meeting we discussed the idea of reading outside and talked about how nice it would be to extend our library outdoors. Children decided to open a competition for the whole school to design their ideas for what this could look like!   The competition was a great success with so many fantastic ideas! School council met to look at and discuss the competition entries and gave prizes to the winners.

Mrs Threlkeld is looking into how much it would cost to renovate the area outside our library  and incorporate some of the fantastic ideas the children came up with. 

At our next meeting we will talk about ideas for how we can raise money for this project.

Autumn Term 2015

During our first meeting we discussed suggestion boxes.  Children looked through boxes and discussed ideas.  We found out that children were  enjoying taking toys outside at playtimes, they would like more skipping ropes. The book box was a big hit with children, especially at lunchtimes. they would like more books about animals, Roald Dahl and Star Wars, and Steve Hartley books.  We have purchased books from Steve Harley, the author who visited us at school and Mrs Threlkeld has promised to buy a selection of the other books requested.

Children in class voted for who they would like to represent their views and ideas on our school council. During an assembly Mrs Threlkeld introduced the newly formed school council to everyone, and the children spoke to the rest of the school about their role.  

 The children have all made suggestion boxes that are now kept in classrooms.

Summer Term 2015

Everyone is so excited about our new library and all the fantastic books that have been donated to us.  We each asked  our class for other ideas for  the library, some ideas included Kindles, comics and annuals.  The PTFA have already given us money towards new books with the money we raised from the Sponsored Event but when we told them our ideas they have also agreed that they will buy us some KIndles, comics and annuals too!

  Thank you to our PTFA for this kind donation. 

   Spring Term 2 2015

Our School Council members gathered ideas from their classes for our sponsored event this year and a lot of children wanted to go with the dance as they enjoyed themselves so much last year! 

Following a discussion about running a tuck shop at school, a meeting was arranged with 'Fruit Suit', a company who sell healthy snacks. School council now need  to come up with a plan to raise the money to start the business off, we will update you on their progress very soon!

   Spring Term 1 2015

School Council have passed on the children's views about lunchtimes at Grange Valley to Mrs Threlkeld and Mrs Holcroft who have promised to look into making improvements for the children.  This term already we have increased clubs for children to join at lunchtimes.

Mrs Holcroft has had a meeting with our kitchen staff to discuss other issues raised.  It has been decided that children will soon be eating from plates rather the trays they currently use and we have ordered  tablecloths for all the  tables.

Following our most recent meeting School Council are speaking to children to gather ideas for our Sponsored Event for this year.   

    Autumn 2014

This term the children in class voted for who they would like to represent their views and ideas on our school council. During an assembly Mrs Threlkeld introduced the newly formed school council to everyone, you can view the slideshow below.

We have had our first meeting together where we discussed our roles and looked at ideas from our class suggestion boxes to take forward this year.

The council chose the topic of school dinners and made a list of questions to take back to class to get children's views in this area in order to improve lunch times for everyone. 

July 2014

We had our last school council meeting of the year.  We emptied our suggestion boxes and recorded any ideas to give to Mrs Threlkeld to take into 2014 - 2015.  We were all awarded certificates and a little gift for all our hard work this year!

Monday 3rd March 2014

School council have collected feedback from their classes about their views on homework and this will go together with teacher and parental feedback to update our Homework Policy for September 2014.

You may also remember that School Council members surveyed classes to see what kind of games they would like to have on our playground.They then asked our PTFA if they could help to pay for them and were given a budget to work with. These games arrived in school this week and the children were so excited to open and check we had received everything! Click on a photograph below to  see the slideshow. 

Members have also surveyed children in their class about ideas for this year’s sponsored event which takes place in school on Tuesday 29th April.The children had some weird and wonderful ideas!The most popular was a sponsored dance where the children get to choose their own music, and the money raised will go towards buying some more games, skipping games and a penalty shoot-out game for our playground. More information will be sent home about this very soon

Monday 13th January 2014

In response to some parental feedback on the subject of homework, received in school following our last open evening, we are  looking to update our Homework Policy. School Council met today to discuss this matter and we put together a set of questions to take back to class to get their classes views on the subject.

Monday 18th November 2013

Today we met our school Governors. We were invited into their meeting to update them on what we have been doing so far this year.

We would also like to thank our PTFA for donating £1000 to put towards some new games and toys for play times, our Playground Buddies can't wait to introduce them to the children when they arrive!

Friday 4th October 2013

Over the past couple of weeks, school council have met to feedback their class ideas about making playtimes more fun. Children would like toys to play with at break time and also some indoor games for when it is wet play.  We looked at the playground to give us some ideas. Children suggested some signs and playground markings to brighten up the playground also. We fed this information  back to Mrs Holcroft and she agreed to let us have some of the money that our PTFA have raised.  Working with a budget, today we  met to look through some catalogues to choose our toys!

Wk Ending Friday 13th September

On Wednesday we had our very first School Council Meeting for this year. Suggestion boxes were discussed and issued to each class representative. Members were excited about returning to their classes to get the views of the other  children about improving playtimes.