Now she simply fizzes with excitement when she talks about
everything they've achieved at the school - and she says it's all
down to the Council.
So if you're thinking of setting up a Sports Council at your
school, here's a word to the wise…
First things first
The first thing I did was to go to the Headteacher and explain
that I thought we needed a Sports Council and why. She was
extremely supportive and told me to go for it. We didn't require
permission from the governors but we did keep them informed of our
plans.
Cast your votes
We have lots of other school committees for which members are
elected. But we decided to use our Year 6 House Captains and Deputy
House Captains as previously they didn't have much to do. Now the
Sports Council is a large focus of their role.
Pupils present an election speech to their house and the
children vote for a boy and a girl. Our Young Ambassadors also sit
on the council to make a total committee of 12.
First team huddle
At the first meeting, I explain the aim of the Sports Council
and how we can help. A Chairperson and a Secretary is elected and
we decide on our Mission Statement which is driven by the School
Sports Survey results - so it could be around making pupils feel
more comfortable doing sport, for example. That's something I help
steer.
Supporting the Council
As the staff representative, I meet with the Chair to decide the
agenda ahead of meetings.
I help guide and facilitate the meeting, rather than lead. I
might have to calm some ideas down if they are not feasible. But
the group soon understand what might not work in practice and opt
for a simplified version of an idea.
The clubs obviously need staff supervision so it's a good idea
to try and share that out among the staff.
Work of the Council
As a council, we meet during Assembly time (just like all the
other committees) and we meet twice a month, sometimes more.
We need to meet regularly because we're running three clubs
every week - cross country, cheerleading and table tennis. We break
into smaller groups to organise the clubs and the children are in
charge of everything - from advertising the sessions and
encouraging attendance to leading the activity itself.
At meetings, we discuss what went well and what to do
differently next time.
They say…
The children enjoy the responsibility and the parents think it
is wonderful.
The governors have been really impressed. Each school committee
has a link governor which means they attend some meetings and feed
back. The children also attend governor meetings and present their
work and the progress made. Pupil voice is so important in our
school.
And the results are in
When we get the results this time around, we will give the whole
report to the Council, as we did last time. We find it perfectly
accessible for the Year 6s and they can make sense of it. It's
important they see the results - they answered the questions, so
they should see the answers.
We will break into smaller groups to focus on different
questions and we will probably do follow up questionnaires with
pupils to drill down even further.
Final pearl of wisdom?
Just have a go! Don't worry about what might go wrong. After
all, our children all need to learn that we learn from our
mistakes.