SMART Council
Over the last few weeks you may have heard from your children about our exciting development - SMART Council! Our Smart Council plays an important role in the school, looking at issues or ideas that affect the children themselves and gives every pupil an opportunity to be part of decisions that affect them.
SMART council is split into three areas Class Meetings, Communication Team and Action Teams.
Class Meetings
Class Meetings have been key to the success of the Smart School Councils model at Buttsbury and enable all the pupils from Reception to year 2 to vote regularly on an issue or question of interest. The aim is to allow pupils to voice their opinions and to have a say in the way our school is run.
Class Meetings are short, focussed sessions that are held once or twice every half term. They are guided by the ‘Class Meeting Tool’, an online form that is sent by the School Council Coordinator to every class teacher. The Class Meeting needs one person to lead it and another to record class responses on the form, and these roles are taken by pupils whenever possible.
Each meeting is based around a single question, with three or four possible answers. Pupils discuss the subject in groups of three and agree upon an answer. Votes are entered into the form and collected electronically. The results are then checked and evaluated by the Communication Team and the action from the voting is fed back to classes.
Communication Team – To start after May Half Term 2021
The Communication Team is made up of two pupils from each year two class, elected at the beginning of the year to help run the Smart School Council and get everyone involved. At Buttsbury they meet at lunchtime once every two weeks with the SMART Council Coordinator, a member of staff who is responsible for overseeing SMART Council activities. The job of the Communication Team is to coordinate fundraising, and set questions for the rest of the school to vote on, evaluate the results of previous votes and agree on actions that arise from them. They also act as an extra channel of communication, bringing ideas from their classmates and relaying information about SMART Council activities back to their classes.
Action Team – to start from September 2021
Action Teams are the third element of the Smart Councils model. These are small groups, clubs or teams who get together to share an interest, organise an event or try and improve something about the school. Action Teams need to be approved by a member of staff but should be able to be run by pupils independently.
Last week’s vote
Which lunch would you like for our book day lunch?
The winner was fish fingers!