School Council Update

Building on their mini COP-26 conference in November, our Y6 school council interviewed our school cook Shell today! They asked her about our school kitchen and our environmental footprint. Y6 brought questions from all the classes for Shell to answer.

Shell explained how our fruit and vegetables are always seasonal and that anything that is not seasonal is always frozen so that it does not spoil. She also explained that lots of our produce is locally grown and that the drivers who deliver it to us have to take the most energy efficient route. She enjoyed cooking our potatoes and pumpkins and has asked pupils if we can grow some beetroot, as this is one of the ingredients we use for our chocolate brownies!

Shell discussed how the kitchen use our food orders that go to the office every morning to ensure that there is as little waste as possible. All our food is cooked to order! She showed us how much waste is produced in the kitchen each day when preparing our food - it wasn't very much at all! 

However, Shell then showed us the food waste that is left over from food that is not eaten, but has gone onto our plates- we were quite shocked! School Council are planning on introducing a 'waste challenge' to see if we can cut down on the amount of food waste we produce. We also intend to write to HCS3 to ask them if they can provide Fairtrade cocoa and chocolate for our desserts, as we found out that our bananas were fair trade, but not the cocoa used in the kitchen.

As a result of their action plan at their mini COP-26 meeting, School Council have also introduced special bins for our fruit at breaktime, which will then be added to the compost. They have also introduced a crisp packet recycling point, which when full will go to CO-OP for recycling. 

We had so many questions about where our food comes from and the environmental impact, that we will be going back to Shell next week to ask her some more! A big thank you to Shell for answering our questions today.

School Council Summit 2020

• Mon 10 Feb 2020

  Max (School Council Chair), Lillie (Vice Chair), Teddy and Oliver all represented Our Lady & St Joseph at the Partnership School Council Summit on 7th February. All Year 5 and Year 6 School Council members from across the partnership schools came together.  During the morning session, we learned more about Fair Trade, and how this initaitive helps farmers and workers in countries all around the world. We were shocked by the exploitation of these workers and are determined to encourage the Fair Trade campaign to support them. 

   

  We worked together to mindmap ways we can promote Fair Trade in school, and are planning an event to support Fair Trade during the Summer 'Fiver Challenge' . Each school presented their ideas, and we all collaborated and shared together how we can move this initative further forward in our schools. There were some very innovative ideas and it was wonderful to see our young people being so passionate for bringing about change. We will be bringing back our work to share with the other members of school council and the rest of our school. 

   

  In the afternoon, we all discussed the Eco Schools programme, and carried out a questionnaire to see what we are doing well (and not so well) as a school at promoting environmental awareness and action. Our Lady & St Joseph decided to focus on the theme of 'Energy' and will be taking back some ideas to school as to how we can combat our energy usage.  

  It was wonderful to meet children from other schools and we all worked very well together as a team. Thank you very much to the Primary Catholic Partnership who hosted us for the day. We had a great time!

The School Council had a wonderful trip to Lymington & Pennington Town Council on the 17th October, to learn more about local democracy. We took part in a 'mock council meeting' in the council chamber, which was chaired by the Mayor! Teddy and Oliver played the parts of councillors, and presented some fantastic ideas to the council about alternatives to single use plastic in the town centre. We voted on their proposals, and all of their motions were agreed and carried! Max was the Town Clerk and discussed the 'Woodside Gardens play area report'. We had to vote on new equipment for the area - the 'multiplay unit' was the most successful. Lillie and Louis also performed fabulously as 'members of the public' and asked extremely insightful questions about our local area. We concluded our visit with a Q&A with the Mayor. We all felt very grown up sitting in the council chamber and very much enjoyed our visit! We learned lots about plans for the local area, but also about how a council meeting runs and the democratic process in which decisions are made. 

We were also lucky enough to visit St. Barbe Museum as part of our trip, and learned about the history of Lymington & Pennington Town Council. We particularly enjoyed learning about the history of the 'logo' and coats of arms that the council have previously held.