Pupil Voice

At Belmont Junior School, we run our school council adhering to the SMART school council model.

This model is very different to the traditional school council model, and is designed to ensure that EVERY child can be involved in the work of school council, take action and have their voice heard, as opposed to the traditional model where often only ‘elected’ representatives meet regularly to make decisions on behalf of their class.

There are 3 strands to the SMART school council:

• Class Meetings that everyone takes part in - use an online ‘Class Meeting Tool’ to easily involve all in developing oracy, confidence and leadership skills, rotating the job of recording and leading the meeting.
• Action Teams that give opportunities for pupils to get involved in social action – children choose their own projects, complete an action plan and have a go!  The idea is that children learn how to listen to each other, compromise, communicate and see that effort leads to reward.  Whether the team achieves their goals or not, they will learn what leads to success or failure (and sometimes failure teaches us more!).
• Communication Team is a group of pupils who are elected (so children can experience the democratic process in action too) to communicate between class councils, action teams and the Deputy Head who meets the team every 2-3 weeks for a whole school update.  Watch this space for the Communication Team newsletter to update you too…!