At St Monica’s, we believe that all our students’ views are important. Through our School Council, we afford our pupils the opportunity to take a leading role in representing their peers and shaping the future of our school community. Student voice helps pupils understand their democratic rights, actively drive school improvement, and act as genuine agents of change. It also develops key leadership, communication, and project management skills.
Our School Council fosters responsible attitudes, positive behaviour, and hands-on engagement with real-world issues. It creates a strong sense of belonging, encourages active listening, and builds self-confidence across all year groups.

Selection & Democratic Process

To ensure fair opportunity for all students, informal nominations have been replaced with a formal application process:

• Application & Vote: Students submit a formal written application letter followed by a fair, democratic vote within form groups, ensuring quieter students have an equal chance to get involved.
• Equal Access: This updated selection process ensures passionate, committed representatives are chosen.

Organisation & Leadership Structure

Our School Council is structured across year groups to provide a clear leadership ladder and progression:

• Form Representatives: 2 elected representatives per form group.
• Council Leadership Team: Student-led executive group that directs council discussions and liaises directly with the Senior Leadership Team (SLT) to achieve tangible results on key school issues, such as facilities and school food.
• Senior Student Roles (Year 11): Senior roles designed for Year 11 pupils, offering prestigious experience for future CVs and applications. Elected Year 11 representatives are recognized with exclusive Gold Ties.

Core Roles & Responsibilities

• Driving Student-Led Action: Directing discussions to ensure student feedback goes straight to the SLT for real, prompt outcomes.
  School-Wide Sustainability Project: Leading the core 2026–2027 mission in partnership with the environmental charity Another Way.
• Leadership & Project Management Training: Participating in official Bright Leader training to develop core project management capabilities.
• Mentoring & Peer Support: Senior student leaders taking on key responsibilities, including peer mentoring, running extracurricular clubs, and acting as official school ambassadors.
• Representing & Advocating: Gathering feedback across form groups, leading school assemblies, and driving positive environmental and community initiatives.

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!”