Pupils voting for change - Schools council minutes for 9th Jan 2024

School's Council 

2023/24 5^th  meeting 09/101/24 12.10

Present; Ellie-Rose Connolly, Toryn Connor, Tom Webb, Layla Stewart
               Eva Wilson, Jessica Agnew, Oscar Overend and Jonah Smyth

                 Mr McClean and Ms McClelland

Absent; Luke Gilpin

We welcomed the councillors back to continue their work in 2024. We began by passing on Mr Blevins’ thanks and congratulations on all the hard work the council did prior to Christmas, completing the pupils’ survey. This work gathering the feelings and opinions of the pupils will help shape the direction and focus of the school into 2024 and beyond.

The council gathered a mass of ideas and suggestions in the course of the survey, for things they wished to see – added to our school, changed or developed or indeed removed from the school as  to enhance all our experiences.

Yet as we explained, there were over 100 suggestions for change and now we would need to focus on these as to prioritise them, then lobby Mr Blevins for the change or at least an explanation of why it was not possible.  

The council came up with an action plan to;

• Ask permission of our class teacher to address the class for 10/15 minutes

• Explain that we hope to gather 5 ideas from each class (ranked in order of importance) regarding change in our school.

• Explain how we will do this is by the class brainstorming all the reasonable ideas that they have and these will be listed on the board.

• When the list is exhausted – pupils will do an omni vote (you can vote repeatedly for as many or as few ideas as you wish)

• When the list has all been voted on, the top 5 suggestions will be recorded in order

1,

2,

3,

4,

5,

Next Tuesday 16^th Jan at 12.10 the council will again assemble with their recorded 5 priorities for change. Each suggestion will then be recorded and given points due to its importance to the student.  (if 1^st choice = 5pts, 2^nd = 4pts,  3^rd = 3pts, 4^th =2 pts, 5^th = 1pt)  

All ideas will be listed and grouped if there is any overlap

We will allocate the points to all the suggestions and give the points that EACH class has prioritised them as to create a table of Wishes and their importance.

This table will then be sent to Mr Blevins for his consideration.

Mr Blevins will then, at his earliest convenience and after discussion with relevant teachers and bodies, give a response back to the council on what course of action the school will take in accordance with the students’ wishes.

We discussed ideas that might be considered and did a few dry run examples of how to gather the requested information.

All councillors agreed they understood the task and would do their best to have all ready for next Tuesday.

The meeting was then concluded at 12.30

Minutes by A. McClean