Our School Council

Our School Council

At Aston Rowant C of E Primary School, we have a group of children who form our School Council every year. Every child from Year 1 to Year 6 has the opportunity to put themselves forward to be a school councillor.

These children are responsible for:

• Working with their classes to discuss any current issues, concerns or developments
• Feeding back relevant information after School Council meetings to their class and class teacher
• Selecting a charity for our school to support
• Organising events to help raise money for the nominated charity
• Making informed decisions about our school, eg: new playground equipment
• Inviting visitors into our school when appropriate
• Working in and communicating with the local community, eg: advertising events, visiting local businesses

We value the role of the School Council in our school as we believe it allows children:

• To develop confidence and interpersonal skills
• To see our Christian values in practise around the school
• To be actively involved in decision making that will have a direct impact on their community
• To work with a range of people, eg: adults from local businesses
• To begin to understand how a democracy means working fairly
• To have a voice within their local community
• To reflect on the needs of their school and chosen charity

Selection process

At the beginning of each school year each class will discuss the role of the School Councillor and will agree on a set of criteria that the ideal candidate should try and meet, eg: a fair representative for their class, a good friend, someone who regularly demonstrates our core Christian values, confident to talk in front of others. Any children who are interested in taking on this role then have the opportunity to prepare and present a short pitch to their class explaining why they would make a good Class Council representative. The rest of the class then vote for the person they feel is most suitable for the role. We ask the children to be considerate of each other; if they have had the opportunity to take on this role before then they allow others to also have the opportunity.

Charities

The school council decides on and lead our charitable work in school. The charities we support are both local and global.

In the 2024/2025 school year, Sobell House Hospice were our main charity focus. We raised vital funds to help provide a variety of services at the Hospice, including specialist, compassionate nursing care, bereavement support and therapy to patients and families at the time they need the support the most.  We embarked on a big sponsored walk and took part in the OxTrail art project to also enhance our art curriculum.  We raised an astonishing £3,300!

Previously, we have supported the international charity Tear Fund. We chose them as we wanted to do something for Covid19 on a global scale and we also wanted to support refuges from Afghanistan.

Our charity in 2020/21 was our local Children's Air Ambulance, based in Princes Risborough.

Here are some of the annual charities that we support:

• Sport Relief
• Comic Relief
• Children in Need
• Jeans for Genes 

We also support an education project in the Gambia. We raised funds in school to buy essentials for school pupils which were boxed up and sent to the school. These items include stationary, mosquito nets and toiletries. We also raised funds to pay for a young boy's education each year. This was Emran and he wrote to us to tell us all about his time in school.

Every term we hold a whole school council meeting, led by School Council members and Year 6 children. The questions are decided on by the School Council and discussed in small groups. The feedback is given to Mrs France and the Governors.