Election 2014

Elections took place today for this year's school councillors. We have a new theme for our school council this year - 'Learning to Lead'. We'll be announcing our new class leaders next week - so the children will have to wait for the result a little bit longer!

Kindness...with Kevin!

Meet Kevin...our kindness bear! The school councillors have been helping Kevin spread the K-factor - encouraging kindness - by designing posters to go up around the school.

Tyre Park visitors

Last week School Council Representatives from St. Monica Infant School visited us to have a look at our Tyre Park as they are thinking of getting one at their school.

Some of our own school councillors greeted the visitors and showed them what fun we have on our Tyre Park!

They swapped ideas about the types of games that can be enjoyed on the tyres and our councillors were able to explain how we use a rota to share the fun equally between classes! 

 

JRSO...?

Representatives of schools and local services in
Southampton

This stands for Junior Road Safety Officer! Here we are at St Mary's stadium along with other schools finding out more about Southampton's new scheme to keep children safe when out and about. It's actually simple -  get the children themselves to be the safety champions and let them spread the message about keeping safe! Southampton city council, along with Hampshire police and fire will be supporting pupils in getting this important message across. Sadly, the majority of accidents on the roads involve children aged 10-14 either on their bikes or as passengers or pedestrians. We hope this scheme will help keep our pupils safer!

Lucy and Daniel at St Mary's Stadium

Unveiling Southampton's New War Memorial

Our school councillors were proud to take part in the unveiling ceremony of Southampton's new war memorial today. Together with children from other schools, we helped to reveal the new wall to remember the people of Southampton who had given their lives in conflicts since the First World War.

This was a chance for old and young to meet and we talked to representatives of the Royal British Legion and this was a reminder that many people are still suffering today as a result of conflicts around the world. The original memorial is nearly 100 hundred years old and many of the names are now worn and faded so this new wall commemorates a further 1,992 citizens of Southampton who lost their lives and will be a lasting tribute to their sacrifice.

Election Day!

Last Friday saw Bitterne Manor go to the polls for the election of this year's school council. All candidates had spent their week making speeches and canvassing for votes but in the end it all comes down to the ballot box! The votes are in and the election results will be announced shortly. Two councillors will be elected from each class. Well done to all those candidates who stood for election.

Voucher Rewards!

This years School voucher collection is complete! Our totals for this year have been 13084 Tesco and 12202 Sainsbury vouchers collected on our behalf. Thank you to everyone for donating your vouchers to us. We have already put together our order and we'll receive our free resources by September. To give you an idea of what we use them for - this is a picture of a handheld digital microscope which we can purchase using vouchers - something useful that we don't have access to at the moment. Rather than saving for one big thing we talk to the school council and staff about what they would like and choose from the wide range of resources available. This year some of the items we have ordered include a microscope, a bird hide, a bamboo water channelling set, some club cricket sets, a pop-up target and velcro balls, some rainbow river stones and a game called 'Goalball'!

Ikea visit

Our school councillors were invited for a tour round the IKEA store in Southampton. We were shown around by 'Sparky' who is the store's environmental champion. He explained to us how much IKEA is doing as a a company to support sustainability in their stores, products and in communities around the world - it really was impressive! We'll be encouraging our school to do a bit more to help the environment over the next few months too!

Toilet planning...

The school council have been collecting ideas from the children on how to improve our school toilets. Here they are discussing plans put forward by the rest of the school. We are looking to paint our toilets with an interesting design - if anyone knows any artists in the community who might be able to support us - please get in touch!

New Kitchen & Nurture room

Here are our school councillors having a first look at our newly completed kitchen area and nurture room. This new facility replaces our old IT suite and will allow us to do a lot more cooking activities in school.

The Green Team

The Green Team have been out and about in the school grounds looking for litter - they were shocked to find some as you can see! They are going to challenge the school to be litter free this week and have some special prizes for those children they see being Greener and keeping the school cleaner!

Mayor Making

The former Sheriff of Southampton, Councillor Carol Cunio was elected today, Wednesday May 12, as the 788th Mayor of Southampton, a role for which records go back to 1217. She has taken over from the former Mayor, Councillor Elizabeth Mizon.

Our School was represented at the ceremony, which took place at the Guildhall, by two of our school councillors.

Get Recycling!

The School Council would like to get everyone to recycle more! We collected a bag of rubbish from around our school and took it to Hedge End recycling depot to see what could be recycled. We were met by the manager, Chris Macdonald, who showed us where all our rubbish could be put in the right place. His site is the most successful of 26 recycling depots in Hampshire and has a record 85% recycling rate. He reckons that people could do a lot more to recycle their rubbish even if it did mean putting him out of a job! Enjoy the pictures of us looking round and recycling our rubbish!

Visit to the Council Chambers

The School council paid a visit to Southampton City Council to meet the Mayor and tour the council chambers.

Eco Action Teams

This week we start our whole school review of the sustainability of our school environment. All the pupils are being split into action teams to investigate an environmental topic or theme. We are aiming to become a more sustainable and environmentally freindly school!

For more information about the Eco-School programme head over to http://www.eco-schools.org.uk/

Or watch this short film:
http://www.eco-schools.org.uk/assets/uploaded/resources/21_film.mpg