At St Monica’s we believe that all our student’s views are important and through our school council, we afford our pupils the opportunity the take a leading role to represent their peers and their own views of the school. We believe the student’s voice helps students to understand their democratic rights, to have an input into School improvement and to be an agent of change.  It also promotes Leadership skills and develops people skills.

Our School council helps children develop responsible attitudes, and improve their behaviour; gives children hands-on experience of issues in the National Curriculum. It also creates a feeling of belonging, encourages listening to others and develops self-confidence.

The role of the student council.

• Represent the student body.
• Raise funds for school-wide activities
• Participate in fundraising
• Share ideas & concerns
• Help people in need

The organisation of the school council

Our school council is spilt into different roles and responsibilities and subcommittees. At the head of our school council, we have our Chair, Deputy Chair, Secretary, Treasurer, PR officer and then subcommittee leaders for Teaching and Learning, Mental Health and Well-being, Charity, fundraising and events, Anti-bullying and Eco-friendly groups.

Roles of the School Council

• Surveys and promotions e.g. Healthy Schools/looking after the environment
• Lead assemblies
• Conflict resolution
• Anti-bullying initiatives/posters
• Organising charity /events /festivals:
• School newspaper/website/podcasts etc
• T&L
• Student behaviour
• Proposed action plans and solutions

At St Monica’s our dedication to prayer and service is carried out through our Caritas group. The group involves pupils of all-year groups who come together to carry out campaigns, fundraising and school-based projects all in support of Caritas.

Caritas puts the Catholic faith in action to help end poverty, serve the poor and promote justice and our group is honoured to support such a meaningful organisation.

Prayer

Alongside fundraising opportunities, our Caritas group is involved in the school liturgy. Our dedicated students have been working hard creating prayers for our form time whole school prayer points. These prayers are said every morning as part of our school collective worship. They have also carried out school-wide assemblies.

Service

Fundraising and charity through our Caritas group are heavily student-led with all members getting opportunities to pitch ideas and run campaigns around the school. This allows our pupils to be actively involved in the school mission and understand what it is like to live out the values of Catholic Social Teaching.

Here are some events our group have been responsible for:

• 2021 Christmas Shoebox Campaign – the group distributed posters and information on the campaign which we ran through our RE department. Pupils then helped collect the shoeboxes and send them on their way to those who needed them most at Christmas time – we sent off a massive 124 boxes.
• Food collections – the group have run and organised food collections throughout the school so these could be donated to food banks.
• Raffles – the group has fundraised through raffles. They organised the prizes, selling the raffle tickets and the draw. Most recently we raised an amazing £150 for Bury Red Door!
• Easter Egg Campaign – to go hand-in-hand with our raffle for Bury Red Door, our Caritas group ran an Easter egg appeal with all eggs collected going to those less fortunate. We managed to collect 313 eggs!
• Poppy appeal – throughout November, our group sold poppies during form time

The Caritas group is so important to help those in our local community but also provide amazing enrichment for our pupils. Hear what one of our year 9 pupils has to say about being in the Caritas group:

“I enjoy Caritas as we are able to help other people who are less fortunate than us. When we help others through fundraisers and charity, we are living out God’s wishes by helping our neighbours. I joined Caritas to become a role model for my younger peers and to spread the word of God and always be loving. I think Caritas has improved my confidence and given me the chance to meet new people!”