School Council

In accordance with British Values, all children in the school are taught that is their right to vote, and the importance of living in a democracy. Each year, children in Year 2 to Year 6 can put themselves forward as their class school councillor. They each complete an application which states why they would like to be a school councillor and make a short presentation to their class. Once this stage is complete, each class votes on who they believe would best represent their call as a school councillor.

Senior members from Year 6 hold the following posts; Chair, Vice-Chair and Secretary. The children have the opportunity to meet with the members of the school staff and Governors.  The children's voices are taken seriously and help shape decisions made at Whitehall Primary School. 

Our new school council have been elected by their classmates and very excited to be representing their peers (you can spot them with their special purple pins): 

• Year 2: Mali, Stanley & Bram
• Year 3: Martha, Thierry-James, Yahya
• Year 4: Halima, Otis & Clara
• Year 5: Yorick, Olivia & Isla
• Year 6: Molly (Chair), Jesse (Vice-Chair) & Tayibah (Secretary)  

Here are some things that school council have already been working on this year:

• This anti-bullying week the school council looked at the 'Anti-Bullying Charter' and discussed with their classes how it can be updated and improved. They are working with staff to redesign the children's Anti-bullying charter. 
• The school council worked with the Healthy Schools team to write the Active Travel pledge.
• Fundraising for AidBox
• Giving a pupil voice to the PSHE subject leader to help them develop their subjects.

Pre-loved Book Sale

School Council choose AidBox as the charity to raise money for through a 'pre-loved' book sale. It is a local charity which supports refugees and asylum aseekers in Bristol.

Thanks to the very generous donations of our families, we raised £170 for Aid Box uk. 

Aid Box visit and assembly

One of the volunteers from Aid Box came to talk to school council about the fantastic work they do for refugees and asylum seekers in Bristol. It was so inspiring, the school council have decided to lead school assemblies to share what they learned about the charity with the rest of the school. 

School council were very proud to present the cheque for the money donated from school.

Previous School Council Activities

Parliament Workshop: A workshop to learn more about Democracy and how laws are made

We had a visitor who came in and led an assembly to teach us about Parliament. We learnt about the role of the house of commons and the House of Lords, how laws are created and how our votes help to elect members of Parliament.

Afterwards, the School Councillors had a special workshop where we learnt more about the jobs in the House of Commons. We got to pretend to be government ministers and have a 'real' debate about whether school hours should change so that children start school at 10am. We all took our roles very seriously and gave strong arguments for and against this as a new law. When we had finished debating the speaker then told us we needed to vote, like MPs do: those who thought it should become law went to the 'Aye' lobby (this means yes!), and those that thought it shouldn't become law went to the 'no' lobby. The majority of us voted no, instead we think school hours should stay the same as they are now. It turns out that this was a real life debate a few years ago, started as a petition by a young person!

We all thoroughly enjoyed this experience and we now have a far greater understanding of democracy, one of our British Values.

Eco Brick Workshop

We were fortunate enough to have some special visitors:Dr Sara Williams who works at UWE and is looking at how children can understand more about environmental changes, Brick-It Bristol, who are working to educate people about how to recycle plastic through making eco-bricks which can then be used as a building material. We had a great afternoon learning about the different types of plastic and then we got to make our own eco- bricks! We are going to have an area set aside at lunchtimes for children to make eco-bricks.

MP Thangham Debbonaire visits Whitehall Primary

The School Councillors and the Rights Respecting Ambassadors met Thangham Debbonaire. They asked lots of great questions to learn more  democracy and life as an MP.