2013-2014
Selection
process – All students are invited
to take part in the School Council by completing a nomination form explaining
why they should be selected, suitable skills that they possess and gather
supporting references from two members of staff and two students. Heads of Year
are given the completed forms and select five representatives from each year.
All students selected will represent their year and attend all year council and
whole school council meetings which take place on a monthly basis. Students
that are not selected and all other students are welcome, and encouraged, to
attend council surgeries which take place weekly; Wednesday at the Upper School
and Thursdays at the Lower School.
Measuring
success: Weekly meetings are well
attended and students that are not representative attend and get involved in
projects. The surgeries are needed, it is a place where students are supported
in completing their actions.
Training
with Involver
Involver, the
award-winning social enterprise that
improves school councils and student voice,
worked with the school council for a day of training. Sessions included team
building, evaluating last year’s council, identifying council projects. The day
cumulated with a whole school council meeting which was attended by the head.
Measuring
success: Evaluations were
positive, students enjoyed the day and felt better prepared for their role as
council as well as feeling energised about new projects.
Projects
·
Annual Summit – Students took part in the locally run
summit showcasing Barking Abbey Council’s work and attending workshops.
Students were very impressed when they won the award for best presentation.
·
Barking and Dagenham Youth Forum – All school students were invited to
nominate themselves for the position of B&D Youth Forum Representative. Students and members of the School Council
put themselves forward. Once elected non successful members were approached and
invited to attend council surgeries. Forum members are invited to feedback at
all Whole School Council meetings. Barking Abbey representatives are currently
inspecting local pharmacies ensuring that they are young people friendly.
·
Terra Cycle – Mr Cohen, Head of Technology attended a School Council meeting to
propose a new project: recycling broken, old pens. This hard to recycle
material could be turned into cash which could then be either spent in school
or donated to a charity. The council unanimously agreed to take part in the
project and begun to work with Mrs Watts in the upper school kitchen collecting
78 boxes. During surgeries students covered and labelled the boxes and then
drilled holes in Technology. Students emailed staff to support the project and
then delivered the boxes with an informative poster. Students attended an
assembly at upper and lower school to inform students about the project.
The
council will collect the pens in September and continue the project next year.
Caretakers have already been contacted to ensure that boxes are not thrown away
over the summer holidays!
·
Work experience – Y10 students were concerned about the
schools decision to shorten the time students were away on work experience and
the fact that Trident, work experience placement organisation, was no longer
being used. Students asked Y11 students to complete a survey after work
experience. Data was gathered and discussed with the Careers advisor and the
Head. Unfortunately no changes have been made to the 2014-15 calendar.
·
Sports equipment – Early in the autumn term, the Lower School
Council created video logs asking students what improvements they thought the
School Council could make. Suggestions included lockers and swimming pools but
one Year 8 student mentioned that he found lunchtimes boring and asked the
school council to provide sports equipment. The council discussed this with Mr
Jones, Head of Lower School, who fully supported the project. The School Council
then discussed and decided to raise money to spend on sports equipment in the
summer. Fundraising events included a Christmas sweet sale and a spring car
wash. Over £140 was raised. The school council surveyed students about what
equipment they would like, the results were then vetted by Mr Jones. School council members purchased equipment,
an assembly informed students about how to use the equipment. Footballs,
hula-hoops and lots more are now being used at lunchtime in the Lower School
playground.
·
Toilet lock at upper school – Arun Kumar, a Y10 councillor, spoke to
students during break and lunchtimes. He was concerned about student’s
complaints about broken locks on the boy’s toilets at Upper School. He
contacted the school Assets Manager and asked if they could be fixed. Although
the response was ‘get the students to
stop breaking them’, Arun politely wrote back and explained that the
minority of students were ruining the toilets for the majority of students. The
change did not happen quickly, funds needed to be found, appropriate lock
selected but the locks were fixed! Arun created posters to ensure lock were
respected by students and placed these in the boy’s toilets.
Hi sir,
I am a school councillor and I am
working on a very important issue which I particularly need you to consider it,
this is fixing the toilets locks.
The school council is aware that the
school spends lots of money making it a nice place for students and staff,
however a minority if students are ruining the toilet experience for the
majority. The council think this is unfair. Would be possible to repair them?
If there is no money available could the council do a fundraiser and buy new
locks as well as raise awareness about this issue.
I have already made a petition to
improve toilet locks and it is full of loads of signatures, so I know this
means a lot to students. I have emailed you to gain your consideration of this
idea to improve this school and make it an even better place.
Many thanks I look forward to receiving
a response.
Arun Kumar
Here's the response....
Here's the response....
Hello Arun, I am heartened to hear that the students are concerned about the condition of the Year 9 Toilets. I will order some new toilet locks this week and get them fitted as soon as possible. I hope you will all help to prevent them being damaged by the idiot minority.
Good luck!
Mr Coley
·
Parliament School Council Award – The School Council selected one project to
put forward for Parliaments Speakers School Councils Award. The Council
selected Arun’s toilet project. The application was submitted but unfortunately
the application was not successful however we did receive a logo to place on
letter headed paper.
·
Hooks in the Upper School changing rooms – Daaim, a Y10 councillor, approached the
head of PE and Assets Manager to request more storage space for clothes in the
changing room. The Assets Manager, inspected the changing rooms and agreed more
hooks were needed. The hooks have been ordered and the council are waiting for
them to be put up.
·
Jack Petchy Awards – Miss Hart successfully nominated two
councillors for the Jack Petchy Award: Rao Khan for excellent organisation
skills and being a pivotal member of the school council and Arun Kumar for his
project success. Money awarded was spent on supporting other council projects.
An Upper School chess club was set up, ten chess sets were purchased. School
council members were bought note books. Three footballs and one basketball were
bought for the sports equipment project. £200 pounds was also donated to the Garden
club at lower school, which was spent on a new pond pump and lots more.
·
Lanyard project – School councillors felt that the School
Councillor logo on ties was not large enough for other students to recognise
them. Students approached the Head and ICT lead to request lanyards with
identity cards. Council initially requested that the cards should give them
access to external gates so that they could move about sites easily when
attending Whole School Council meetings. The lanyard request was granted and
the School Council’s budget was used to pay for them, however the request for
the gate privileges was turned down. The council persisted with their request
which was later granted by the Head.
·
Stationary shop – A year 7 student who attends council
surgeries took on a project to start a stationary shop in the Lower School
library. The librarian has agreed to run the project, stock has been ordered
and posters created. The shop will open in September. If successful stationary
will also be on sale in the Upper School Library.
·
Winter Sports day – Y9 students were upset when finding out
that Winter Sports day did not run at the Upper School. Rao Khan approached Mr
Edwards who then spoke to the Head of PE. The event has been added to next
year’s calendar.
·
World Aids Day – Councillors ran an awareness raising event
buy creating and displaying posters about World AIDS day and selling red
ribbons.
*See
letter attached
·
Children in Need – Two lower school students attended council
surgeries and set up a fundraising project where students and staff had to
guess the staffs baby pictures. Over £40 pounds was raised and donated to the
charity.
·
School building project – The school council are currently working
with the governors to ask the council to allocate more funds to improve the
school buildings.
Communication
Council communicate with students and staff
via email, survey monkey and the blog: http://babbeycouncil.blogspot.co.uk/
All students can attend surgeries to share
concerns or ideas or email the school council: schoolcouncil@barkingabbeyschool.co.uk
Trip
All councillors have been invited to attend a
trip to EU House to develop their understanding on European representation. The
trip takes place on the 18th June.
Accreditation
Councillors are invited to gain accreditation
for their work as councillors. They can gain a maximum of 60 credits, which is
equal to a short course GCSE, by completing the ASDAN Activities Award. The
deadline for submission is the 26th June 2014.
Evaluations
Evaluations will be completed at the celebratory
council meeting on the 25th June and will be added to the report in
July.
Report
written by Rao Khan (Y9 Councillor) and Miss Hart (Council Coordinator)
2012-13
You may not be aware but the school council has achieved a lot this year. As a whole school council this year we dealt with three major challenges...
1) the bid
2) work experience
3) end of term trips
1) the bid...
as you may or may not remember at the beginning of the year a survey was sent out to ask you if the school had won £500 what should the money be spent on
a) splash cards b) solar panels c) improving the upper school gardens
The result of this was improving the upper school gardens, so therefore the decision that was sent forward was improving the upper school gardens.
Unfortunately we were not selected to go forward to the finals but we did finish in the top ten! The school council worked on this project from October to January and put in a lot of hard work such as meeting up during lesson time, missing breaks and lunchtimes to meet deadlines and staying after school to assure the project was completed. therefore the school council were applauded for their commitment, dedication and creativity skills. The school council would also like to give you a big thank you for all your cooperation- replying to surveys and emailing us your opinions.
2) work experience...
this was an issue that mainly targeted y10 and y11. the school had cancelled of working experience for this year and the many years to come, the reason is yet unknown due to lack of communication between staff and school council. The school council immediately recognised this issue as a huge loss to students. School council feel that work experience is an amazing experience and certain stuff learnt in work experience can not be learnt at school. The school council immediately began to work on this issue. a final meeting with senior members of staff was arranged and the school council have successfully managed to bring in a week's amount of work experience for the coming year. it is important to understand that it may only be a week's work experience but we will try our best and try and get it back to 2 weeks in the coming years.
3) End of term trips!
as you may know this year end of term trips were cancelled. the school council were very shocked when the news came in. The school council think that students work really hard all year and that they deserve a reward towards the end of the year. the school council immediately began to work on this issue. reasons we have been given were that it was to late to book at the end of the year for end of term trips. following up on this the school council felt that this was a matter that should be taken the head, so therefore a meeting was arranged with Mr Edwards.
Mr Edwards informed students that the school believe that the end of term trips are a great way to praise students for their hard work and he is aware that the demand amongst students for the trip for is high but due to national action with the unions they will not be happening this academic year.
Mr Edwards stated
that the end of year trips would go ahead next year.
The council have already made end of term trips a priority next year, so hopefully you all should be getting your end of term trips next year. :)