School Parliament Blog

It is time for our final termly update about what School Parliament have been up to during the Summer Term.

School Uniform

Mr Smith proposed the idea of changing the school uniform and during School Parliament meetings we discussed the options available, looking at the possibilities in a school uniform magazine. We then had the opportunity to see the sample uniforms in real life and we gave our opinions. We are excited to see children wearing the new uniform next term.

Tuck Shop

We have also spent some time discussing the idea of setting up a healthy tuck shop at break times. Each class representative led a discussion in their classroom to create a list of healthy snacks we could sell. Hopefully this idea becomes a reality in the next academic year, we are sure children will love it.

Altar Cloth

Reverend Janet came into school to speak to the School Parliament about the Christian Altar Cloth. You may have noticed in Church that different colours are worn or shown during different seasons. Each colour cloth is used to represent a specific time period in the Christian Calendar. As School Parliament are now aware of when to change the cloth and why it is being shown, you should notice our altar cloth changing when necessary.

And a final farewell from School Parliament 2016-2017. We thank all the children for their helpful suggestions and we hope that we have represented you well, we certainly have enjoyed doing it! Enjoy your summer and we wish the new School Parliament all the best for next year!

After an exciting (and busy!) start to the Spring term, we thought it was only right to update you with what we have been up to.

Anti-Bullying Ministers

Sophie and Matilda have carried out an Anti-Bullying walk around the playground and the hall at lunchtime, looking at what they saw and heard. They saw lots of children playing nicely together and sharing equipment, especially those children who were taking part in the organised sport with Jacob and children in Key Stage 1.

Unfortunately, there were a few children in Key Stage 2 who were perhaps playing a little bit too rough for our playground. To address this, Sophie and Matilda have suggested that they will prepare a presentation to share during Collective Worship or some posters to go around the school as gentle reminders.

School Parliament as Class Representatives

Improving the toilets in Key Stage 2 has been raised as one suggestion to make Coton an even better school. As we, the School Parliament, are democratically voted for, we felt it was necessary to discuss the prospect of updating the toilets with our constituencies.

To do this, each class completed a spider diagram with ideas for “Our Ideal Toilets”. We thoroughly enjoyed sharing some of the ideas that everyone came up, in particular themed toilet paper for the season and sofas to ‘chill out’ on. We discussed each idea, considering the practicalities of each suggestion and also identifying similarities across the classes suggestions.

These similarities involved:

• Softer toilet paper;
• Higher cubicle doors;
• Air freshener;
• Larger toilets with lids;
• Push flushes;
• Hand dryers;
• Foam soap;
• Colourful decor;
• Pictures on the wall (that are useful for school).

Now we know what our constituents are envisioning, we have informed Mr Smith so he has a better idea of what he needs to look for when designing our new toilets. We will keep you updated, so keep an eye out!

Collective Worship and Christian Life

Charlie, Milly and Lottie now have a new responsibility to share which P.E.A.C.E School Vision Value the school is focussing on each week. This will be displayed around the school so all staff (and other children) can be looking out for people who deserve certificates during our special Collective Worship on a Friday.

 

As always, speak to your Class MP for anything you would like to bring to our attention or just tell us about anything fabulous about our lovely school!

Kind Regards,

 

 

 

School Parliament

 

Hello everyone,

We wanted to update you so you all know what we have achieved in our first term as School Parliament. We try to meet every week with Miss Forrest and feel that we have achieved an awful lot in such a short space of time.

We have changed the titles of our MPs which means we all have very specific jobs, making our meetings very focused. Hopefully this will come through during this blog post.

Privilege Points, Passes and Time

The first (and our personal favourite) action was the introduction of Privilege Points (PP’s) which add up to Privilege time. We are responsible for setting up Privilege time and are acting on feedback from children about what we put out each week.

We have had positive feedback from most children and are currently responding to some to some ideas about how to make Privilege time even more amazing! Some suggestions which we have received so far include:

• Having privilege time every two weeks so that children are not missing the same lessons and more people will go, making it more sociable;
• Extending the privilege pass to having a 2 month “expiration” date so people can wait longer so they can attend privilege time with their friends;
• Making privilege time longer so it is more of treat and people can do more than one activity.
• Having a “Smithy Star of the Term” who gets a bonus privilege pass for being a star all term.

Sports Leaders

We are also very proud of the introduction of Intersport Competitions at lunchtime. Although the practical sport sessions are led by Jacob (our play lead), Lochy and Finn (our Ministers for Sport) also take great responsibilities each week. Lochlann and Finn organise who will be taking part in the Intersport League each week, from all the different houses and year groups. As you can imagine, this is very tricky to organise, but they are doing fantastic. Following the sessions, Jacob informs Chloe (our Deputy Prime Minister) of the scores and she can then update the score board, which is displayed in our hall.

We have had a really positive response to the Intersport League and lots of people are taking part. Our next action, however, is to make sure that when people sign up, they remember to take part.

Collective Worship and Christian Life

Milly, Lottie and Charlie now lead the dancing and actions in our daily Collective Worship. As a Parliament, we think that this has led to lots more children – especially children in Outstanding Oaks and Wonderful Willows – taking part in and enjoying Collective Worship.

We have also recently introduced a chart where each Minister for Collective Worship and Christian Life can nominate the grooviest class, 3 children whose behaviour is fantastic and can also make a note of children whose behaviour could be improved.

Each child who gets spotted being fantastic earns themselves a privilege point and the class with the most votes for grooviest class gets a star from Mr Smith.

Anti-Bullying Walks 

Our Ministers for Anti-Bullying and Playtime (Matilda and Sophie) have also been on an Anti-Bullying walk at lunch time which showed that on a whole, our play and lunchtimes are enjoyable and we offer lots of different activities and equipment for children to play with. However, we did see some play that was a little bit too rough and some children who were not showing as much respect as we would expect towards our equipment.

Looking Forward

In the next half term, we want the Ministers for Classroom and Learning (Jenson, Mexxii, Piper and Mark) to do a Classroom and Learning Walk, with Miss Forrest or Mr Smith, with clear criteria to focus on. These criteria may include:

• Volume in classrooms;
• Presentation in books;
• Purple Polishing;
• Respect for equipment;
• Equipment available;
• Working walls;
• Happiness of children;
• Behaviour of children.

We are also hoping to do another Anti-Bullying walk to check what has changed since our last one, in particular the amount of rough play.

Lochy and Finn are also planning to check with Jacob about whether all the people that sign up, attend the Intersport sessions.

We hope you will agree that we have made a really positive start to the academic year. We are hoping to do more regular updates on our blog, so keep checking on here for our latest news.

 

Kind Regards,

School Parliament