Welcome to

 Birkdale Primary School Council! 

Our School Council Representatives are such an important part of our school community and, each year, they contribute to the continual development and improvement of our school.

They are responsible for the following key areas:

• Pupil Voice - each Class Councillor represents the 'voice' of their class. They are the go-to person if a child wants to make any changes, improvements or share ideas for the future of our school. In addition to this, they carry out half-termly Pupil Voice Questionnaires with their class and feedback their findings to the Chairperson and Vice Chairperson and the School Council link teacher. 
• School Charter - councillors review our School Charter each year and ensure that this is understood by all of their classmates and placed prominently within the classroom. They must know and understand the rights of the child and ensure that these rights are being upheld by adults and children within the classroom.
• Charity work - the School Council generate ideas (of their own or from their classmates) for charity and other fundraising events. They contribute to the planning and promotion of these days throughout the year. 
• Southport Learning Partnership - our councillors represent Birkdale Primary at a range of SLP events and collaborations. They share best practice with other schools within the SLP and learn from the successes of these other schools to inspire future projects at Birkdale Primary.
• Senior Leadership Team and Governors - the School Council meet with members of our SLT and Governors termly to discuss any important issues and share their ideas and hopes for the upcoming term. 

Here are all the members of our School Council for the school year 2021-22!

1R – Lexi Ruddock

1C – Raferty Bateman

2P – Diasy Stoker

2C – Tobias Owens

3G – Georgia Robinson

3S – Liam Rigby

4M – Abbie Briscoe

4C – Vanessa Hornby

5M – Maya Nelson

5S – Sonny Popplewell

6JS – Luke Hill

6P – Rachel Grice

Chair – Alfie Ellis

Vice Chair – Sophie Mawdsley

There are lots of plans to keep our School Council busy this year so please do keep checking back here to see what they have been up to!

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Our Plans for 2021-22

Our first meeting of the school year was to decide on some focus events for the SLP to support this year. We were asked to think of:

1) our own school-based event

2) a local community fundraiser

3) a charity event to benefit the wider world. 

These are the ideas we came up with:

For our school:

- a 'Birkdale Bake Off' to raise money for our school grounds

- have some nice murals painted in the playground and around the school

- grown and keep plants and flowers in each classroom to help us connect to nature more

- develop more school-clubs that are not for sports

For our community:

- a local litter-picking walk

- a beach clean event

- 'bring a parent to school' day

- make cards for our local NHS staff, thanking them for what they have done for us

- 'Bring a keyworker to school' day to celebrate them

For the wider world:

- Raise money for Christian Aid

- sponsor a child in another country that needs help with things for school

- Collect donations for shelters that support refugees

- make some shoeboxes for the Christmas shoebox appeal

The SLP will be letting us know which ideas received the most votes soon!

Southport Town Deal

We were asked to take part in the proposals for the new 'Town Deal'! Southport are going to be awarded a big sum of money to make improvements to the area and we were asked to share some of our ideas for how the money should be spent! Our School Council representatives watched the video explaining what the Town Deal was all about and shared some initial ideas. Councillors then went back to their classes and shared what was happening with their teachers and classmates and collected in more ideas! We then came back together as a School Council to see what our most popular ideas were as a school and sent them off with a note to the children of Southport in 30 years time!

You can read more about Southport's Town Deal by following the link below:

https://www.sefton.gov.uk/miscellaneous-pages/southport-town-deal.aspx

We then got a letter back from the Chair of the Town Deal thanking us for all of our ideas and giving us some more information about the decisions that have been made so far! 

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MP Visit

Our Southport Member of Parliament, Damien Moore, came to visit Birkdale Primary and sat in on one of our energetic Star of the Week assemblies!

He then did a really informative Q and A with our School Council about what it was like to be an MP and sit in the Houses of Parliament, no matter what your political party may be.

Our School Council came up with some great questions (Mr Moore really liked the question 'Are you allowed to sit with your best friend in Parliament meetings?'!) and it was fascinating learning about how someone can help to lead change in our community as well as what it is like to work in our capital city! Mr Moore talked about his passion for improving the green spaces around Southport, particularly cleaning up parks like the Botanic Gardens which he believes will help children and adults with their wellbeing. 

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