Birchwood Primary School

Welcome to the School Council!

Our chosen charity for 24/25 is the Polesworth Donkey Sanctuary. This is a local charity who support the welfare and care of donkeys and other animals. This week Kimberly and Jenny came in to talk to us about the work that they do and showed us some photos of the animals that they look after. There were lots of very cute pictures! They let us ask lots of questions and we are looking forward to supporting them this year.

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At our last meeting, we met Alison from Health Champions. She came along to find out what we wanted to base our Health Champion sessions on this year. We discussed different topics and put them in order of what we thought were important. We also thought showered different ways of sharing our information with the rest of the school. We look forward to working alongside her this year!

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Our first job of the year was to hold votes across the school to decide which chosen charity to support and which WWF animal we are going to sponsor this year. The following decisions were made:

Chosen charity for 2024/25 = Polesworth Donkey Sanctuary

Sponsored WWF Animal for 2024/25 = Tiger

The Polesworth Donkey Sanctuary

World Wildlife Fund - Tiger

Welcome to our school council page 2024-25!! We are the newly elected school council!

Birchwood Primary School - Sleep

The KS2 school councillors really enjoyed their visit to the Dementia Caring 'Time Out' session at Elford Village Hall. They participated in 1970's music Bingo, an Olympic themed exercise routine and led two turtle themed activities themselves. This theme had been chosen to link in with our WWF chosen animal of the year. The colourful craft turtles were a big success and 'Throw the hoop over the turtle' was a competitive, yet fun and interactive, game too! Thank you to the group for having us and being so welcoming. The school councillors represented our school brilliantly.

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Our final Health Champion session was all about screen time. We discussed the good points and bad points of using screens and talked about how our bodies may feel if we spend too much time on a screen. It certainly got us thinking about our own habits and perhaps how we can track our usage going forward. We look forward to discussing this with our classes and getting their views on healthy screen time allowances!

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Our third Health Champion Session was all about sleep. We discussed why our bodies need sleep, the importance of a good bedtime routine to help us get the amount of sleep that we need each night and thought about how we feel if we don't get enough sleep. It was really interesting and definitely made us think about our own sleep patterns and how we can encourage everyone to look after their bodies with a good night's sleep!

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The school council welcomed Barry Coleman, from Dementia Caring, to a meeting. To continue the link created with this inspiring charity, he talked with us about the role they have and how it supports people who are dealing with dementia. He showed us some photographs that gave us an idea of the range of activities that occur at a 'Time Out' session and set us the challenge of creating an activity that we could take along. We look forward to getting creative!

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The whole school enjoyed taking part in Red Nose Day this year. The school council organised a 'Rosey Red' non-uniform day which saw a bright and colourful turnout! Thank you for taking part.

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The School Councillors have had their second Health Champion Session on Emotional Wellbeing. We discussed how emotions cannot always be detected through body language and the importance of having conversations and listening to other people. We also thought about and practiced strategies for calming ourselves down, which we will share with our classes. Finally we discussed (and practiced by building towers and trying to balance on one leg) what it means to be resilient and to have the determination to not give up!

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Before Christmas, we presented a cheque of £1000 to our chosen charity for 2022-23 Dementia Caring. We have really enjoyed learning more about this charity, visiting sessions and working alongside staff to come up with activity ideas. We look forward to continuing links with this charity. Barry Coleman, founder of the charity, also read his book, ‘Scary Aunt Sally’ in our KS2 assembly. We enjoyed listening to him read!

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A new role for the school councillors this year is to become Health Champions. We have worked alongside Jake and Hannah from Health Connect, and are excited to have the opportunity to promote good health within our school community. Our first session was all about handwashing. We discussed how germs can be spread, and looked at how we can wash our hands properly. We will be making sure we share this message with our classes and encourage everyone to wash their hands properly!

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Hi Everyone

Exciting news! Next Friday 17^th November is Children in Need Day. We would like to have a non-uniform day to help raise some money for this cause. It would be great to wear something yellow or spotty for the occasion if you can. Donations can be made on ParentPay or cash brought in on the day. We hope you join in and have some yellow, spotty fun!!

Thank you

The School Council

Our chosen WWF animal to adopt for 2023-24 is…

A Turtle!

Our School Council have carried out votes within each class to help decide which animal we are going to adopt this year. We hope to find out lots about this incredible animal throughout this year!

We had a visit from a local charity, Polesworth Group Homes. It was really interesting to find out about the work that they do in supporting adults with learning disabilities and to hear about how our fundraising could help them. After their visit, the School Council unanimously decided that they would love to support this charity this year. We are looking forward to working with them!

The Year 5 and 6 School Councillors visited the National Space Centre in Leicester with our partner school, Lanchester. It was a lovely way to meet some of the teachers and students from this school, share our experiences and to have fun whilst learning about space!

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The school councillors went out today to visit Polesworth Poetry Trail. We read lots of poems that taught us about the history of Polesworth, whilst also practising map reading skills and road safety. We have lots of ideas now - keep your eyes peeled!

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As the school year has begun and our new council members have now been chosen, we are busy deciding on which charity we are going to support this year as our chosen charity. Watch this space ........

Hi everyone,

We are the newly elected school council for 2023-24! We are really excited to get going with our new roles and look forward to updating you throughout the year!

The New School Council for 2023-2024.

We had a visit from Barry Coleman, the founder of Dementia Caring. He came to say thank you to the school for our support this year, and to show us how the money we have raised will be spent at the Time Out sessions. It was really interesting to hear all that is going on, and we loved seeing the range of activities and the fun being had. It has been a great charity to support this year.

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The school choir really enjoyed their visit to sing and take part in a Time Out session for Dementia Caring. A group of year 4, 5 and 6 school councillors and House Captains recently also visited a session. They took two activities with them, relating to trains, for people to have a go at. The children really enjoyed taking part and helping with the session.

Hi everyone. We cannot believe how close the end of the term is and what a busy year it has been! In our last meeting we shared with the school that Kitwood Park is currently under reconstruction, and should be finished in the next week or two. Back in November we met with Deborah Sharp from North Warwickshire Borough Council, and collected ideas for her about the new park, through class surveys. We then fed back this information and helped to give advice on the set up of the park. We cannot wait to see what the new park will look like, but look forward to it being ready for the summer holidays! We hope you get to enjoy it too!

Hi everyone. We really enjoyed the sponsored run on the last day of term. It was lots of fun and we were amazed by how energetic everyone was. It was great to have some visitors from our chosen charity, Dementia Caring, to come and join in too. Mrs Willis came to our last school council meeting on Friday 19th May, and showed us some of the activities that they do at the ‘Time Out’ sessions. We played balloon tennis with foam tube rackets, sang a song with a top hat, played team games with ping pong balls and clapped rhythms to name just a few. They were all games that help fine motor skills, co-ordination and memory recall, as well as being lots of fun! We know the year 5 and 6 choir members are looking forward to going to do some singing at a ‘Time Out’ session this week. We look forward to hearing how they get on!

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Panda Day was a great success. Everyone enjoyed dressing up in black and white for the day, and completing the Panda Quiz that involved finding Panda faces around the school. Juniper even gave us some of their thoughts:

‘Our favourite fact from panda day is how much a baby panda weighs (around 120g) This is as much as a medium to large tomato. How cute they must be!'

'The saddest fact is that there are only around 1800 left in the wild.’

We were pleased to raise awareness of these incredible creatures and hope that the numbers in the wild continue to increase. Thank you for your support.

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The school council had a visit from Mrs Willis, who is a founding member of our chosen charity ‘Dementia Caring’. She came to tell us about the weekly sessions currently run for dementia sufferers and their carers. It was really interesting, and great fun to take part in the activities that are designed to stimulate memories, encourage fine motor control and encourage social interaction between group members. We look forward to coming up with some of our own activity ideas that could be used in future sessions!

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Minutes of the School Council - 6.1.23

'The School Council enjoyed meeting with the 'You belong here' project. They discussed the art installation at Abbey Green Park in Polesworth, and heard about how a poem is going to be created based on the theme of identity and belonging. A word bank is going to be created that a local poet can use to write the poem, and Birchwood Primary School are going to help!'

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Thank you for all the entries into our Pudsey Spotacular Doodle competition - these were the winning entries who all received a token for our book vending machine!

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We have had a busy few weeks! We took part in some ‘real research’ for Warwickshire Borough Council and collected ideas for new play equipment at Kitwood Park. We are also currently conducting class surveys to help decide on which animal we are going to sponsor this year. Children in Need was a ‘spotacular’ day last week - thank you to everyone who joined in. We are looking forward to judging the entries for the spotacular doodle competition next week. If you are yet to bring your entry in, then still do!

Thanks for reading our chatter,

The School Council.

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Lanchester EP Primary school, our partner school, have come for their yearly visit to Birchwood Primary school. Their first stop in the Midlands was Cadbury’s world, and our year 6 and year 5 school councillors went to meet them. We had fun exploring Cadbury’s World- watching the 4D cinema experience, exploring the factory ground, touring the factory and, of course, eating a little bit of chocolate!

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The School Council are conducting some ‘Real Research’ this week after a visit from North Warwickshire Borough Council. Kitwood Park is due to be refurbished and improved in the near future and the children have been consulted about what they would like to see there. They will be gaining feedback from their classes over the next week before giving their suggestions back to the council.

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Chosen Charity for the year: Dementia Caring

We have already had a busy half term. We have chosen our new charity to support this year after hearing all about it at a meeting with one of its founders. It is a charity called Dementia Caring. It helps to support not only those people that are suffering from Dementia but also their carers. The charity runs morning sessions, called ‘Time out’ sessions, once a week where people can go and take part in activities such as music, singing and games, or go and have a friendly chat with other people who are experiencing a similar situation. It enables carers to have a few hours to themselves, or provides a group where they can talk and share experiences. Overall, the aim is for everyone involved to have some fun whilst getting any support they need. We are looking forward to helping to raise some money for this brilliant charity this year, and hopefully work along side them to help plan some activities and possible visits. We will keep you posted on our first fundraiser soon!

First News Letter ‘Chatter’ of the year

Hi everyone,

We are Riley and Kaleb and we are the new Year 6 School Councillors. We have had meetings to introduce ourselves and in our last meeting we read a book called “Scary Aunt Sally” which links to a charity we might support. We are currently deciding on our chosen charity for the year and we will let you know very soon. Some of the school councillors have already had ideas about how we can make the school an even better place than it already is. You can always come and tell the school councillors your ideas too and rely on us to do our best to help. We look forward to seeing what we can achieve this year. Thanks for reading.

Welcome to the school council page 2022-23. We are the new school councillors!! We were elected in each of our classes by our classmates and are looking forward to helping make lots of decisions about Birchwood Primary School this year.

2022-23 School Council

School Council News:

We had a busy half term. The Sponsored run went really well on May 27th. Each class really enjoyed taking part, with lots of individuals pushing themselves to run as many laps of the school as they could. We helped by stamping the cards at each half lap for different year groups - it kept us busy! And we also joined in the laps with our year group too. Photographs can be seen on the 'News' tab, under May 2022.

Also in that week we had a trip to the farm with the Eco Councillors. Freya and Joshua wrote a chatter for the newsletter explaining what we did during the day. It was a fabulous experience to learn about the different crops, see the animals on the farm and also learn about the life cycle and importance of bees. Photographs and the chatter can also be viewed on the 'News' tab, under May 2022.

Mrs Hill

Hi everyone. The school council have had a busy few weeks! The red nose hunt on Red Nose Day was lots of fun. Everyone enjoyed going around the school looking for clues and working them out in teams. The Red Nose design competition entries were amazing. We chose winners from each class and the winners will be revealed after the Easter holidays.

We also have been collecting ideas for quiet areas on both playgrounds. Some

ideas we have had are a book shelf outside in the shape of a book, having bean bags with maybe blanket and pillows too, calming music and nice smelling scents. We will pass our ideas on to Team Birchwood!

Thanks for reading,

Georgia and Poppy.

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