Welcome to St Nicholas School Council

What is a school council?

A school council provides a meaningful way in which pupils can voice their opinions and have their views taken into account in decisions that impact upon them. At St Nicholas the school council represents the views of all of our pupils. Our school values pupil voice and we believe all of our children have the right to share their thoughts and feelings about their school life and learning environment. Our school council team meet once a month to share ideas from their class, to help make improvements to the school and the way we do things at St Nicholas.

Who are the School Councillors?

At the beginning of every academic year, children will be given the opportunity to put themselves forward to be a member of our School Council. Children from Reception to Year 6, who would like to be a representative, are given the opportunity to stand up and share their reasons for why they would like to be a representative and why they would be the best person for the job. Each class will then make their vote and the School Council for the year ahead is formed!

Congratulations to all the children who make up St Nicholas School Council for this academic year.

Our teacher representative Mrs Druce is very proud to lead the school council at St Nicholas. We have a fantastic group of children who are very keen to share their ideas and help to make our school a wonderful place to learn.

Our school Council aims:

• To make sure our school is a happy and safe place for all of our children
• To work together as a team to ensure we can be the best school possible by discussing ideas and making decisions.
• To make sure children have a place to voice their concerns, opinions, and thoughts
• To ensure any suggestions or concerns are listened to and acted upon.
• To organise charity days and fun activities for the school.

What have our school councillors been focusing on this year?

Autumn term 2025

During the Autumn this year...

1. What questions could we ask our caterer about the new menu?

• Could the children design their own meal for different topics?  (Reception)
• Will there be any themed dinners? What are the new pudding options? Please can we see photos when choosing our lunches? (Year 1)
• Are we going to remove things that are bad for the environment, such as plastic packaging? What healthy salad options will there be? (Year 2)
• How much variety will there be? Will we have themed days? (Year 3)
• How often will the menu change? Please can we have cheesy potato pie again and an all day breakfast? (Year 4)
• Will there be larger portions for KS2? Will there be a bigger range of options? (Year 5)
• We would love to have food from different countries, some seafood, burgers again, sushi and lasagne (year 6)

1. What healthy food choices could we request?

• Raw vegetables, more fruit and a salad bar (Reception)
• A variety of salad and pasta options, chicken wraps, lasagne.  (Year 1)
• A variety of fruit puddings, different vegetables (Year 2)
• Can we have some meat free days? More wraps, sandwiches and sushi (Year 3)
• Can we have some different culture or country themes? (Year 4)
• A range of sandwiches or baguettes with different fillings (year 5)
• Sushi, flat breads, tacos, more variety of vegetables (year 6)
•  

Gabby (Caterlink) kindly came to chat with us on November 6^th. She answered many of the school councillors questions and this is what we found out about our new lunch menu:

• The lunch menu will now include a baguette option- ham, cheese or tuna.
• A daily salad bar with a variety of healthy options as well as daily fruit and yoghurt.
• The menu will change each week (on rotation every 3 weeks)
• There will be themed days and food from different countries.
• There will be a healthy pasta option each day for KS2.
• All packaging will now be eco-friendly.

06/11/25

What are you enjoying most about Opal play times at school?

• Mud kitchen, play house, scooters, basketball hoops, bikes and scooters, playing with older children (Year 1)
• Trim trail, scooters, play house, mud kitchen, opal woods (year 2)
• Play times feel fun and safe, opal woods, sand pit, trim trail, mud kitchen, basketball (year 3)
• Having so much space to run and play! Sand pit, trim trail, scooters (year 4)
• The gym equipment, skipping ropes, forest school- opal woods, building dens, skipping ropes (year 5)
• Basketball, eating outside, scooters, wearing wellies, building area, mud kitchen (year 6)

What new resources and activities would you like to see at play times?

• Roleplay tools, den building for KS1, another sand pit, a slide, bikes without stabilisers, a drawing area (year 1)
• Dressing up area, colouring, mini golf and a mini trampoline, more pogo sticks (year 2)
• Swings, see saws, tunnels, slides, mini trampolines, go karts, football again! (year 3)
• A reading area with books, swings with tyres, an area to write and colour (year 4)
• Slides and swings,  more scooters, a mini trampoline, football again (year 5)
• Art/craft area, scooter ramp, go karts, mini trampolines, swings (year 6)

In recent years our school council team have:

• Helped to organise ‘non- school uniform’ and ‘break the rules’ days to raise money for selected charities.
• Suggested improvements to our new school uniform.
• Helped with electricity saving ideas and created posters for the school.
• Suggested further improvements to our new OPAL playtimes and introduced new resources.
• Voted for our core school values.
• Discussed ways in which we can keep safe in school, including the importance of internet safety.
• shared thoughts about the school vision and what it means to them.
• reflected on our school values and development of spirituality through; Ow, Wow and now moments

Our School Councillor’s views about their role ….

“I wanted to be a school councillor so I could support my class and be responsible” (Maya, Year 5)

“It makes me feel happy to help my friends” (Cara, Year 2)

“I wanted to help make our school a better place” (Ellie, Year 6)

“I enjoy being a messenger for my class, sharing everyone’s ideas and helping to improve our school” (Ida, Year 3)

“I chose to be a school councillor so I could share important messages with my class” (Maddie, Year 4)

“I enjoy talking about important topics like keeping safe in school and how we can make our playtimes even more fun (Teddy, Year 3)

“I wanted to share my ideas about our school and make it a fun place to learn”

(Harvey, Year 1)