Leadership, Aspiration, Responsibility, Respect, Determination - Shape our World!
Welcome!
Wow, it’s September and it's that time again…our new school council representatives have been elected and they are raring to go! The representatives will serve two terms of office before they hand over to the next council in January. Let us introduce ourselves...
Year 3
Rosen - Riley, Oskar
Rowling - Isak, Isabelle
Blyton - Ivy-Mae, Ben
Dahl - Isabelle, Louie
Year 4
Picasso - Mariam, Jasmine
Alma - Theo, Scarlett
Samba - Lara, Lacie
Britto - Nancy, Lenny
Year 5
Earheart - Zayd, George
Chanel - Shaylin, Adam
Gates - Tony, Priya
Curie - Kieran, Oscar
Year 6
Pankhurst - Lily, Anika
Thunberg - Winnie, Caprice
King - Zola, Sofia
Tutu - Holly, Tilly
Rashford - James, Flo
7/02/2023 – The recipe for…
School Council had some very insightful discussions this week on what qualities a good leader needs (particularly a leader of a large infant and junior school!). We came up with some fantastic ideas including lots of qualities that linked to our school values such as determination, ambition and resilience. We then went around the school interviewing members of staff (including teachers and assistant headteachers) and asking them what they think makes a superb leader. We got some really good ideas and discussions out of it. We would make a fantastic interview panel! Watch this space…
28/02/2023 – Books, books, books
It’s Book Week here at the Willesborough Schools and we have been doing and talking all things books! This week we volunteered to help run the book fair in the hall after school. We managed to help Mrs Loveday with the money side of things and we also had a little browse ourselves. We encouraged children and grown-ups to buy a book so that we can raise enough money to get some brand new, shiny books for our school! We found some fantastic books that could help support us in our learning too. We will be passing on some of these recommendations to Miss Hall and Mrs Scott who are the English leaders.
10.01.2023 & 24.03.2023 – Here We Go Again!
With a new term comes some new school council members. Please welcome the following children to represent your classes for the next two terms…
Alice & Ismet, Ronnie & Olivia, Evelyn & Grace, Max & Isla, Harriet & Miles, Ralph & Violet, Hasniya & Bobby and finally, Isaiah & Lily-Rose!
We had a very lively and productive first meeting where we got to know each other a little better. We were also all very excited and proud to receive our shiny school council badges! We discussed our ambitions as new members of school council and came up with some fantastic ideas about how to improve our school even further. Watch this space!
Our second meeting this term gave us time to discuss a hot topic…school uniform! We know that Community Council at the Willesborough Junior School had a discussion about the pros and cons of school uniform so we thought we would add to this with our own ideas from the infant side. We came up with some really thoughtful ideas about how school uniform is a positive thing, but also how we could make it even better. We had a good look at the current joint ‘Willesborough Schools’ that’s used on some things and we really liked it. The children thought it could be a great idea in the future for both schools to have the same, joint logo on our uniform too. Let’s see!
31.01.2023 – Maths, Maths, Maths!
This week at the Willesborough Schools is Maths Week, so we thought it would be a good idea to reflect on our maths curriculum from the children’s perspective! We bought some of our maths books along to the meeting and paired up so that we got to have a good look at year one and year two books. We saw some great things and all the children were very enthusiastic about maths. We put together a little something to note down all the good things we saw, and we will be feeding it back to the maths leader, Mrs Sparrow, very soon. Good work school council!
07.11.22
This week, the School Council continued their drive to elevate the profile of reading for boys in our school. Children came up with some questions to ask Mrs Handley, our school librarian, to help us prepare for helping make "boys" books more visible across the entire school site, and soon two school councillors from each year group will be putting those questions to Mrs Handley. The school council representatives were also briefed ahead of their upcoming, first, class council meetings, where they will be conducting questionnaires about the reading interests and habits of boys in their class, which will help our English leaders with recommendations for new titles in our library.
We also discussed Guys R Us - an event our school puts on each term, and the children shared some of their experiences of Guys R Us. We had a mix of children that had experienced Guys R Us and some that had not, so first of all we got familiar with what might go on there. Our school councillors then thought of ways that they could help to advertise the event so that more families can come along and take part. As a result, at another school council meeting we shall be making posters and writing letters to our adults to spread the word about Guys R Us even further. The children decided also that they can use their class council session to advertise Guys R Us.
17.10.22
This week, the Junior School councillors made birthday cards for Montfort Manor care home, who turn 3 on the 21st October. We are all excited about our new partnership with this care home located by the William Harvey hospital.
We also had a discussion about engaging boys with reading. The children had some fantastic recommendations that we are going to pass on to our librarian, and we also have some lovely ideas to pass on to our English leaders to put in place to make sure that all children are excited about reading all the way through their school journey. The school councillors gave their honest thoughts about reading. We went on to investigate some of the science behind why boys generally tend to be better at logical disciplines such as maths and science, whilst girls find linguistic pursuits easier, such as reading and writing. The children are looking forward to feeding back this knowledge to their classes along with their suggestions for further improving our school's reading culture.
Lastly, we reflected on the successes of our school council to support a nearby Ashford school with setting up their school council. The children did a great job summarising their roles and responsibilities, and began to unpick the impact of their involvement on learning in the Junior school. Mr Hollamby will be passing on this information to the local headteacher and we will be finding out from this school how they are getting on later in the year.
10.10.22
This week, our school council met with Nikki and Melissa from Montfort Manor Care Home, which is in our local community, near to the William Harvey Hospital. The ladies outlined the work they do there to look after elderly members of our community and gave us an exciting virtual tour of their modern care home.
We met to share ideas of how we can develop this community link, and for us to ask some questions about the care home and its importance.
As a school council, we have decided to be in charge of mapping out how the rest of our school can be involved in supporting this local group and how they will be able to in turn support our school as a learning community.
One idea was for our gardening club to help them upkeep their garden and for some of the residents from Montfort Manor to help our gardening club here at the Junior school.
We will also be liaising with the choir and Year 3 team about having the residents watch Christmas carols and nativity performances. The ladies also thought it may be nice for some of our children to make salt dough decorations for the care home's many Christmas trees. Another suggestion was for our teachers to think about using the residents' local history knowledge to enhance our historical topics in school.
We are going to look into how we may be able to help fundraise for the care home's charities, such as Find A Voice, who they are supporting at the moment. We will also be asking for Community Council members to help promote the Dementia-friendly film days at a local cinema which is well attended by the care home residents and their families. The ladies also liked the idea of children going along to the care home to read with some of the residents.
Next week, we will be making a card to commemorate Monfort's third birthday, and beginning the task of delegating jobs around our school so that as many children as possible can be involved with this wonderful community group. We shall also be beginning our investigation into reading at our school, thinking firstly about the books that boys like to read and what we can do better to ensure children are excited about reading right the way through Key Stage 2.
03.10.22 - Our first meeting of the year!
It was wonderful to see children from different year groups getting to know one another and collaborating so well with exciting ideas for new school projects.
As an introduction, the children shared why they believed they were nominated and shared some wonderful examples of how they have shown our school values already this year.
We have taken the Infant School Council's lead on discussing our playtimes, and the children came up with some useful suggestions around how we can enhance these so everyone in our school is always kept safe and happy on the playground. The children reflected on how they themselves can help reinforce the rules for the playground, in a respectful manner that showcases our school value of leadership.
The children also prepared some questions for next week's visitor, Niki Young from Montfort Manor Care Home near the William Harvey Hospital, as we look forward to linking up with this community group throughout the school year. The children's questions showed their sense of wonder but also a great deal of maturity and sensitivity. Whilst Niki is with us, we will be mapping out how the school and care home can support one another throughout 2022/23 and beyond.
Watch this space for more updates ...
Last academic year 2021-2022...
The Junior School Council was assembled earlier this year, and were busy straight away with contributing to our school, specifically focusing on how all of the amazing learning takes place in our school. They went around the entire school to visit the learning environments; wrote letters to a local care home to organise a visit and also wrote a job description for new teachers. They showed great maturity when they met with school governors and our school improvement advisor to discuss their learning and their successes in the various foundation subjects. The governors and school improvement advisor were very impressed to hear about the Council's curriculum monitoring activities and how they have helped subject leaders to develop their subject area in school, including French.
