Children's Councils

COSP: Children of St Peter's with Miss Keat

We think that it is really important to involve children in making decisions about school, so we use the School Council to help us.

Each class chooses one boy and one girl to attend the School Council meetings. We hold these meetings once a month and sometimes arrange extra meetings when there are important areas to discuss. You can see the members of COSP in our school hall, on the special notice board.

COSP children help make many important decisions in our school. They help interview teachers and decide how to spend money. They enjoy choosing special play equipment for the playground.

Two members of COSP attend the Children's Parliament in Chippenham, joining with children from all the other primary schools in the town. They have worked on re-cycling and road safety. COSP have a suggestions box so that all children can make a contribution.

COSP has helped organise lunchtimes and children now enjoy extra equipment to play with.  They have also developed an Anti Bullying code and ways to stop bullying.

Our Worship Council consists of children from Year 1 to Year 6. They meet with the Headteacher or Vicar regularly to evaluate and discuss collective worship. They also help shape the term’s theme by suggesting questions that they would like to be answered and then bring the ideas to and from their classes. We call these the ‘Big Questions’ of the theme and they are based on the 4 areas of spirituality:

• Ourselves – How does the theme relate to us?
• Others – How does the theme affect other people?
• The World – How does the topic relate to the wider world?
• Beyond – What links and questions are there to wider aspects of spirituality, including God?
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We have a daily act of collective worship, which is led by the Headteacher, teachers, our Vicar or children. When we do not have Covid restrictions we meet together in our school hall or in the adjoining church. It is great having the church so close and we often invite our parents for special services such as at Harvest, Christmas and Easter.

Collective worship uses an approach of learning, reflecting and responding to a theme using the idea of windows, mirrors and doors:

Windows - learning about an area or subject
Mirrors - reflecting what the learning means to them
Doors - responding to the ideas by changing their thoughts/ideas/lives, sometimes through prayer

Children have the opportunity to learn about prayer and if they wish, read and write prayers during collective worship and at other times.