School Council

School Council - 2023/2024

Citizenship and Catholic Social Teaching In Action

St Joseph's greatly benefits from having a School Council where representatives from each of the classes help to share their thoughts and opinions about how to make school a better place for everybody.  They make decisions about important issues which concern them and their fellow pupils.  School Council representatives canvass the opinions and needs of their classmates and bring them to the meeting and then after a meeting share the council's main points. 

 The School Council aims to:

  • involve pupils in making important decisions about the running of the school
  • help make school a safe, happy and fair place to learn
  • help teach pupils about democracy and good citizenship
  • work in partnership with all the adults to improve the school
  • help make decisions about how money could be spent
  • help arrange fund raising events and awareness-raising campaigns 
  • make sure that every child can be heard and share their thoughts and ideas 
  • improve communication between pupils and adults at the school

There are two members from each class from Years 1 to 6 who are appointed at the start of each academic year.  Year 6 have a leadership team, from which two head pupils are elected by the school council.  

The School Council meets at least once per half term.  

In between each meeting, the School Councillors arrange with their class teacher to hold a ‘Class Council’ session.  This provides an opportunity for School Council representatives to feedback to the class what was said at the previous meeting and to take their views to the next meeting.  

The School Council  represent their views to the Deputy Headteacher so that the school’s senior leadership team, governors and staff can make decisions informed by the views of the children. 

When asked what qualities the children thought they needed to be a good school councillor they said you need to be good at speaking out loud and be confident.  You should be happy to come to every meeting, even if it’s at playtime.  You need to be able to listen as much as talk, and to be responsible and patient.