Our School Council 2023-2024

Our School Council

At Hatch Warren, we believe strongly that pupil voice needs to be heard.  Our School Council provides an exciting opportunity for all children to be part of decisions made in our school. It builds children's confidence and encourages effective communication in decision making.

The Election Process

At the beginning of each academic year, our School Council is elected democratically within the first three weeks of the term.  Children who wish to be on the council have to prepare a talk to persuade their class they are the best representative for them.  Our Year 6 School Council Leaders have to apply for the roles of School Council Chair, Vice-Chair and Secretary.  They help to run our polling station where each child in the school votes anonymously for the pupil from their class who they believe will successfully represent their views and opinions. The votes are then counted and our representatives receive a badge in assembly.  

Pupil voice is important in our school and links to the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Children, Article 12 which says, "Children have the right to say what they think should happen, when adults are making decisions that affect them, and to have their opinions taken into account."

How our School Council works

The School Council meets on a regular basis and discusses suggestions, ideas and opinions from the school community.  They share and discuss matters with their classes that will improve the school environment, as well as how we can develop community links. 

Our School Council for 2023-2024

This year, we have 17 members on our School Council.  They have met regularly and have worked on the following areas:

• Anti-Bullying Policy - The school council representatives worked with their classes on the children's part of the Anti-Bullying Policy.  All classes made changes to this and school council representatives fed this back to the main school council.  We then made changes to that part of the policy based on these suggestions.
• Mental Health and Wellbeing - Classes made a list of all the things that we do in school to support mental health and wellbeing for children.  They also made suggestions of further developments we could make.  The school council heard about all of these suggestions and thought about what we improve next.  The school council leaders then talked to the Mental Health Action Group about the children's ideas.
• Non-Fiction Books - The school council have asked classes what non-fiction books they would like to see in the library.  Ideas were fed back at a school council meeting and shared with Mrs Rynott, our librarian.  These books are now on order following our sponsored read during book week.
• Clubs - Representatives talked to their classes about what clubs they would like to see in the future and these have been fed back to the school council and the relevant staff.
• All about Basingstoke - Earlier in the Spring term, we had a visit from our local MP, Maria Miller.  Our school council leaders spent some time with her and she asked them what they liked about Basingstoke and what they wanted improved.  The school councillors have been speaking to their classes to get their ideas about what they like and what they would like improved in Basingstoke.  The school councils leaders are now going to use this information to write to Maria Miller with the school's ideas for Basingstoke.