School Council and Eco Council
Overfields Primary School has an amazing School Council who work tirelessly to improve the experiences of all the children, staff and families in our school community. Our school councillors also take on the additional responsibilities of our Eco Council. The Eco Council works to improve the school environment and to campaign in school on environmental issues around the world.
School Council
The School Council consists of two pupils from each class who have been elected by their classmates. These elected Councillors will then represent their class views at weekly meetings. At School Council meetings, pupils discuss topics such as:
- Playground equipment
- Health and safety concerns they may have spotted within the school grounds e.g. fallen branches, slippery surfaces
- Fund raising events such as our regular raffles
- Our annual school fairs
School councillors are also spokespeople for the other pupils in school. They raise issues that have been brought to them by the other pupils and also relay information back to their respective class or the whole school from the Head Teacher or other staff members.
The School Council activities include creating posters for campaigns, undertaking surveys of pupils, presenting to thier class and in assemblies and organising and running fund-raising events.
The School Council elect a Chairperson, Secretary and Treasurer each year and all meetings are correctly organised with agendas and minutes.
Overfields School Council 2022-23
Elections
At the start of each school year, the pupils experience democracy in action as they elect their school council representative. Children who wish to be School Councillors complete nomination forms and present their ideas to thier class. Every pupil is then asked to vote for their choice of School Councillor at the ballot box. The announcement of the results is one of the most eagerly awaited assemblies of the year!
School Council Election Day
The elected role of School Councillor is a sort after postion with pupils across the whole school. They know it is their chance to get their voices heard. We are very proud to have them as part of the Overfields team.
Eco Council
Pupils who are elected to our School Council also form our schools’ Eco Council. The Eco Council meet to discuss, plan and action work in school around:
- improving and maintaining the school environment
- ensuring that the decisions made in school are ecologically sound and promote responsibility and evironmentally friendly practice
- raising awareness of global environmental issues such as the use of single use plastics and carbon emmisions
Each year, the Eco Council carries out an environmental review of the school to see which areas can be changed for a more sustainable option.
Eco-Schools Green Flag Award
Overfields Primary School holds the The Eco-Schools International Green Flag for environmental awareness and education. The Green Flag programme provides a simple, seven-step framework to enable pupils to tackle environmental issues within their school, their local community and beyond. Our projects have included work on reducing plastic waste in the oceans, reducing electricity useage in school and a recycling/waste awareness week.
Some examples of the work of the Eco Council.
Woodland Trust Award
We are very proud to be a Woodland Trust Green Tree School, gold award winner. The Green Tree School Awards recognise schools who take part in environmental projects such as tree planting, reducing CO2 emissions and visiting woodlands. At Overfields we have promoted and developed our existing woodland, installed bug hotels, bird and bat boxes and planted lots of new trees in our grounds.
