School Council

The School Council’s sole aim is to help make Overdale Junior School a great place for everyone.  It meets fortnightly to discuss any issues – large or small – that the school’s pupils feel are important.

Two representatives from every class are elected each year and are supported by two members of staff, one of whom chairs the meetings. We currently have 30 school councillors therefore from our 15 classes!

School Council has been instrumental in introducing anti-bullying measures, implementing a system whereby children can contact them in confidence with any incidences of bullying and appropriate action will be taken.

School Council ideas and successes

The children always start their year with a training session held at Sir Jonathan North to learn all about being in a school council . This year (October 2018) our very own Mrs Cooper was asked to deliver one of the 3 sessions, about how to run a school council.

The children have quite a few ideas already of things they would like to achieve as a council and discussions about school developments they have been involved in – for example:

We had a big meeting with our new catering company (Leicestershire Traded Services) LTS Catering Services & invited the Infant councillors too and LTS came in to do an assembly about new school meals a week later which was pretty impressive (Monday 5 Nov).

We have discussed our plans for Anti Bullying week – the children are always central to leading the week.

They want to restart FAB, have a “kindness” competition and dress up for Pudsey on Friday 16 November to raise money for charity. They would also like to have a cake sale and be able to play some new games/sports at lunchtime.

The children try to follow a 5 point meeting structure TLDCA – which stands for Thinking, listening, discussing, choosing and agreeing. This approach works well with such a big group.

We continue to maintain our links with Overdale Infant School Council, and work jointly with them at any given opportunity.

The whole school community can give feeback and ideas to the School Council via their suggestion box.

We very much enjoyed our visit to Leicester’s Town Hall as guests of the Lord Mayor, Councillor Ross Grant, on Tuesday 11th December 2018.