School Council (led by Mrs Read and Mrs McPherson) 

Mrs Read: readn@loughton.school

Mrs McPherson: McPhersonc@loughton.school

Being part of the School Council is a wonderful chance for children to represent their classmates and make a real difference to school life. Councillors will meet regularly to share ideas, discuss important issues and help to make decisions that improve our school community and make a real impact (such as last year’s courtyard renovations). This role requires children to be respectful listeners who value the views of others, as well as confident speakers who can share their own ideas clearly. School Council members will need to be independent thinkers, resilient when faced with challenges and creative in coming up with new suggestions and solutions. Most importantly, councillors should be inspired to make a positive impact and work together to ensure every child’s voice is heard.

 

Our 2025 school councillors are:

Year 3: Jack, Laya, Bunny, Nischay
Year 4: Joseph, Isaac, Kai, David, Leora
Year 5: Rocky, Samridhi, Yusuf, Anya
Year 6: Manal, Fafali, Viraj, Maci-Rae

 

Spring 2026 update

As usual, the Spring term was especially busy as it is such short term, with lots to fit in!

We revisited the children’s manifestos from the Autumn term and decided which events they wanted to support. We held a non-uniform day for Red Nose Day on Friday 20 March and raised £547 for Comic Relief. School Council have also been promoting the ‘BIG Walk and Wheel’ initiative, encouraging children to walk, scooter or cycle to school, and we have had over half the school take part.

Autumn 2025 update

We welcomed our new school councillors after half term. We immediately set to work to promote this year’s Christmas Giving Tree, which had an earlier than usual deadline this year, so as to benefit as many children as possible, through our local Children’s Centres. Most of our meetings for the first term were set aside to discuss, promote, sort, organise and count kind donations – as well as to decorate the all-important Christmas tree! We ended up with over 500 donations being made to Moorlands Children’s Centre, who were overwhelmed by the generosity of our Loughton School Family, saying we were “the answer to their prayers” as they had been concerned that there were more families than ever who would benefit from the donations.

School Councillors sought their classes’ views on what they would like to raise funds for this year, and outdoor play equipment, including playground markings and games, received the most amount of votes. Monies raised at our ‘Break the Rules Day’ on Friday 27 March will be used for this, and school council have already met with Mrs Martindale, PE teacher, to consider a variety of playground options. We hope to make some improvements during the Summer term, hopefully in time for some long-awaited sunshine!

 

 

School Council – Summer Term 2025 Update

Wow! What an amazing term we have had!

The summer term started with a school improvement visit with Mr Bacon from The Alliance Trust who visited the school to review the progress of our school improvement priorities. A few days later, we then had a two day visit from Ofsted. Both Mr Bacon and His Majesty’s Inspectors interviewed our school councillors and were interested to hear their opinions on the school environment and found the children to be engaging and polite with thoughtful comments and ideas.

We then joined forces with Mrs Pryor, Chair of Governors, to really hone ideas for the courtyard area and to decide how the money we had fundraised for in the Spring term would be spent. Our Year 6 school councillors had a very exciting trip to B & Q where they checked prices and made lists of items to purchase – as well as coming back to school with a boot full of plants! Mr Farmer sr, Mr Farmer jr and their team along with Mr Cox then got to work to bring School Council’s ideas to fruition. Check this link for photos of the project:

Court yard renovations - Loughton School

You will surely agree that this is now a wonderful area and an asset to the school.

It is always sad to say goodbye to our Year 6 school councillors but we wish them well with their onward journey and hope they will remain involved in school life as they progress through secondary school. A special mention must go to Alex C who is our first school councillor to have served every year since Year 3. It has been a pleasure seeing him blossom from a shy Year 3 to a confident and inspiring Year 6. We shall miss his quirky manifestos, clever ideas and thoughtful viewpoints. Good luck to Alex, Emmy, Neriah and Vyan. You’ve all been amazing this year, and we are so proud of you!

Some comments made by the outgoing school council on their achievements this year:  

“Representing the school and knowing your class trusts you to make decisions makes me proud,” Finn, HB9

“I enjoyed representing the school, talking to Mr Bacon, Break the Rules Day and the whole process of doing the Courtyard,” Roger, HB8

“You might come up with an idea and others will build on it. Show up and try your best,” Neriah, HB14

“Being a school councillor is fun, but also about making the school a better place. Don’t be afraid to share ideas,” Alex, HB15

“I enjoyed going through the suggestion box – there were so many ideas! – and learning what other people want to do,” William, HB7  

“It was fun helping the school and knowing about things before everyone else!” Kai, HB2

“Designing the Courtyard was fun!” Vyan, HB13

“It was good talking to other people outside of the school and collecting fundraising money from our classes and handing it to the office,” Aiden, HB12

“I liked meeting children in other year groups and knowing about exciting things first so we could get involved. Overall, it’s just a really good and fun job!” Ieva, HB6

 

Spring Term 2025

The spring term is typically our busiest term for fund-raising and this year remains the same. 

First, School Council decided to support the 40th anniversary of Comic Relief with a Mufti-day for Red Nose Day, on Friday 21st March. The school was a sea of colour as children were encouraged to wear red or bright colours with an 80s flavour!  We raised a total of £401.72.

The last two weeks of term saw School Council support Sustrans’ ‘Walk and Wheel to School’ eco-initiative, encouraging as many people as possible to walk, cycle or scoot to school. Over a third of all classes took part with some classes having as many as 75% of children report walking, cycling or scooting to school during that time. As the weather turns warmer, we hope that people will continue to use more sustainable means of transport for traveling to school.

Finally, we held our 'Break the Rules' day on the last day of term. Children could choose to break a number of school rules, such as wearing their own clothes, bringing in chocolate or crisps for break, and having squash or juice instead of water. They could also choose to wear fancy dress, make-up, nail varnish or even temporary hair colour and whacky hair styles! This year was our third year of 'break the rules' and our most successful to date, after we decided to trial ParentMail payments for the first time. We raised a total of £505.07, which will be used towards improvements to the internal courtyard area. School Council have also been working alongside our Chair of Governors to draft letters to local companies requesting their help with donations of materials to help develop this area. 

We will soon be letting you know how you might be able to help with the courtyard project too, so watch this space to see how this develops over the next term! 

 

Autumn Term 2024

Our newly elected 2024/25 School Council spent the early part of the term getting to know each other, discussing their manifestos, and deciding on the sorts of things they would like to achieve and support this year. We are very lucky to have four members of our new School Council reprise their roles from the previous years, and a special mention must go to Alex in Year 6, who is our first school councillor to have been elected every year since he began his journey at Loughton School in 2021! Alex said:

“School council is a big part of my school life, and you have made me so happy.”

Our fundraising focus this term has been our Christmas Giving Tree - collecting gifts for less privileged children, which will be shared by one of our local children’s centres in the week before Christmas. We had a record-breaking 600 items donated, which we hope will make a real difference to under-privileged children in Milton Keynes. 

As you will have seen, the School Council did a fantastic job of decorating our Giving Tree! Thank you to our Loughton School family for your generosity.