Our School Council is a fantastic, committed team who work hard to years to bring their ideas to life.   In the past couple of years, they have organised both child and adult book swaps for World Book Day, as well as crafty book competitions like 'potato book characters' and 'shoe box book dioramas'. They have run stalls on both the Christmas and Summer Fayres, working very hard and raising funds that they can use at a later date to develop the school.  Last year, they were able to take part in a fantastic story-telling experience with 'Creeping Toad' storyteller (Gordon MacLellan), where they visited our local nature reserve (Maun Valley) to explore story-telling in nature before returning to school to spend the afternoon creating pop-up versions of their own stories.  They also ran a hugely successful campaign involving donations to the Ukraine appeal last year.  It was incredibly fast-moving and they only had 2 days to gather supplies but, as usual, our KEPS families were incredibly helpful and we were able to donate a huge amount!  Additionally, for 2 years, they have run an appeal in the run-up to Christmas involving collecting gift donations for the children's department at Kings Mill Hospital.

Alongside these bigger projects, School Council are always working behind the scenes to gather whole-school votes and opinions in order to make our school community the very best that it can be.  For example, last year, we gathered examples of our favourite playground markings, before sharing them with our peers via the Smart School Council platform and allowing them to vote for their favourites. Clearly, they did a good job as the new markings look fabulous on our various playgrounds!

Our upcoming projects over the next few months include:

* sourcing an online programme which will assist in the smooth distribution and analysis of the annual pupil voice survey in the summer and rolling this out across the school

* working closely with Mrs Walker to create a system for pupil voice in school in relation to mental health and wellbeing.  This might include creating questionnaire for children (perhaps with an Upper Key Stage 2 focus to begin with) and beginning to establish children's mental health ambassadors, which could run alongside the School Council.

* assisting Mr Stride with his plan to celebrate the geographical diversity of the school with a theme day in the summer term.

* and of course preparation for our stall at the KEPS Summer Fayre!