School Council

Overview

At Edgbarrow School, all students know that they are valued as individuals and can make a positive contribution to the school, local area and wider community.
Our students’ voice is an important part of the school structure and we encourage students with many skills to be part of that voice. Students are involved for example as peer mentors, prefects, student observers, form representatives and charity representatives. Each group of voices elects students to represent them on our School Council led by our student leadership team. Our School Council is driven by the voices of the students and works on projects throughout the year suggested by the voices. They are instrumental in driving forward our involvement in the Eco-Schools project, supporting charity and providing student-led pastoral support. The School Council also play a part in staff appointments and are running projects to support learning in the classroom and improving the school environment.

The School Council has five action committees - Learning; Support & Guidance; Communications; Fundraising; and Eco-Team.

Learning

The Learning team comprises student observers and literacy ambassadors. They are working to keep the high standard of learning for all pupils throughout the school. The student observers are from Year 10 and they observe lessons and give feedback and suggestions from the student perspective. The literacy ambassadors are a newly formed group of pupils from across the school who are working on promoting literacy skills and are setting up a guided reading scheme for younger pupils.

Support & Guidance

The Support & Guidance team consists of the school prefects and peer mentors. The team is involved in:

  • setting up a weekly club for those in Year 7 who are finding the transition difficult, which will be managed by the peer mentors. It will be held on Thursdays in the Art department where there will be activities and games.
  • some of the students from this team have been invited to Brakenhale School to discuss the issues affecting young people today.
  • prefects are doing well in their roles and are leading by example.
Communications

The Communications team is created from the form reps. The aim of the team is to advertise and promote the work of the School Council committees to the school and Edgbarrow community and keep them informed of events and projects. This includes holding drop-in centres to give and collect feedback and liaising with the E-Learning department with updates for the website.

Fundraising

The aim of the student charity team is to look at ways of giving back to the local and international communities. This group has representatives from all year groups. Our fundraising events have included a cake sale in the autumn term which raised almost £500 which has been donated to helping The Butterfly Tree charity. Our next fundraising event is a school-wide Talent Show to showcase the performance skills of Edgbarrow students.

The Butterfly Tree is the whole school charity and we hope to continue supporting them. For further information see below:

The Butterfly Tree Charity

A message from Emma Kennedy:  'As an ex-Head Girl of Edgbarrow School, it was lovely to have the support of both the students and staff of Edgbarrow for this fundraising event. I have been volunteering for The Butterfly Tree both in Zambia and the UK for almost a year now and have recently been given the title of Project Manager for The Butterfly Tree. The money Edgbarrow kindly raised will go towards improving education facilities and resources for the orphans of the Mukuni Chiefdom The Butterfly Tree is a UK charity and NGO in Zambia, which supports orphans and rural communities decimated by the HIV/AIDS pandemic. The charity runs many successful projects in the Southern Province of Zambia, such as providing housing, improving education and health facilities, malaria prevention, HIV/AIDS awareness, feeding programmes and safe drinking water. For more information about the work of the charity, or to donate, please visit their website at www.thebutterflytree.org.uk or email Emma at emma@thebutterflytree.org.uk


School Representatives

School representatives are students elected by their peers to act as a link between them and the school management and other school committees.

Why?

What kind of person?

The role?

Great on your CV, college applications Approachable and a good listener - everyone has to be happy to talk to you about their views and ideas  Collecting views of peers and passing on to other committees
A good way of meeting other students Organised and efficient - regular meetings need to be arranged to obtain views and must cover a wide range of issues in a short time Taking an active part in meetings
Opportunity to change school life Assertive and fair - the opinions of your peer group are as important as other peer groups so they need to be heard and everyone has the right to express a point of view Passing on the outcome of meetings to peers
Get your voice heard Confident communicator - you need to be able to work with a variety of students and staff Take on an area of responsibility eg. school restaurant, blogging
The School Council gives students in the school the opportunity to have their voice heard through questionnaires and a suggestion box in addition to the school rep meetings. The School Council has a pigeon hole at Reception.