School Council

Blackpool Smart School Council

We are very excited to tell you about our Smart School Council.

We feel passionately that a school council should allow every single pupil in our school to have a voice, make valuable contributions to their school and be involved in activating change.

We have a Smart School Council system, with the intention that every child is included in a truly democratic system, and can see how they can lead change in their world.

The Smart School has 3 core elements; a communications team, class meetings and action teams.

Below is an overview of these elements:

Communication Team- A small group of Year 6 pupils who help to run the Smart School Council and get everyone involved. Pupils in this group have specific roles which helps the Communication Team to run. They analyse and share the school outcomes of the class meetings, help to generate questions for debate and feed key points to the Action Teams.

Class Meetings- Class Meetings are short, pupil-led meetings held fortnightly in every class. All pupils take turns in leading the meeting and are guided by an online Class Meeting Tool. The class teacher should sit back and support, rather than leading. Each meeting is based around a single question that small groups in each class discuss and agree on to vote. Class leaders enter the votes into the online tool for the Communication Team to check. Children are also encouraged to suggest actions following their discussions, which are also logged and viewed by the Communication Team.

Action Teams - Following the outcomes and feedback from class meetings, there are times when action groups can lead projects or initiatives across the school. This area will grow over time to be a fully inclusive opportunity for all of our pupils.

Moving forward there will be a range of topics explored, including ways to change our school,                           to world affairs and current news.

This system aligns perfectly with the image below, which will be displayed in all classrooms and around the school, as a reminder that we want all children to have a view and a voice and to be able to use it respectfully and usefully as a tool to develop a tolerant and respectful view of their world.

We will keep you up-to-date with outcomes of our meetings and actions that the children lead, in our school newsletters and in other communications.