The Grove Primary School

Purpose of Pupil Voice

The School Council are an important and valuable part of the team at The Grove. They meet termly as a whole group and sometimes support the work of the two Trowbridge Youth Parliament representatives of our school. They share their opinions and thoughts from EYFS-Y6 about topical matters to them. We find that it is crucial to involve every age within our school as everybody has an important view to share. The main aim of our school council is to make sure that The Grove provides the very best for our children. We want to make sure that every child knows that their voice is heard and that their opinions really do matter!

Who?

The school council consists of 28 children (a boy and a girl) from every class in the school. They were chosen as a representative by their class peers, after sharing with their class why they should be chosen. The classes then voted for the best candidate.

Our aim for 2023-2024

This year we will be continuing with the theme of last year’s #Number 1 programme pride in our school and the community. Under ‘Hold a community event’ the children will work alongside the school’s fundraising group, POTS to promote their Christmas event. Their role will include writing and delivering invitations to the local community and designing a poster to advertise the event to the wider community and people of our town.

Under the umbrella ‘Pride in my school’ the school council will continue the work of last year’s councilors to redevelop the pond area. As well as being involved in the practical elements of clearing and tidying the area they will be involved in raising funds to complete the project. This will include writing to local shops and parents asking for funding, resources and help to carry out the improvements.

Charity Support

Our aim for 2023- 24 is to support the school and our local community and we aim to do this in a number of ways.

Firstly, they will oversee the collection for Harvest. As the items are donated they will sort through them and put each item into food groups. They aim to create a Harvest display for the parents, carers and visitors when they came for the Harvest celebrations. They will bag up the groceries and toiletries which are donated ready for collection for the School’s chosen charity The Trowbridge Storehouse Foodbank.

As The Grove is a Healthy School the councilors will be promoting an initiative called ‘Beat the Street’. They will have their photograph taken for the launch and encourage their peers to participate.

They will support a local charity that Miss Pilling is involved with. The charity that puts together essential items such as shampoo, body wash, toothbrushes and toothpaste and donates them to Secondary aged children who need them. The children plan to organise an event to collect donations for the bags, they will be responsible for creating posters and a collection box for their class to place the items in.

The councilors will work alongside the school’s Youth Parliament representatives to create a Grove Christmas tree. The tree will be displayed in St James’ church and they will go to the church to see their tree displayed alongside other local school’s trees.

As a school we get lots of lost property items! The councilors will work alongside the school’s Eco – Warriors and P.O.T.S team to explore ways of helping to reunite items with their owners, which, in turn will help keep some areas of our school tidy. They will promote the ‘Rags to Riches’ clothes recycling scheme by distributing leaflets to our neighbours and local community.