Welcome to our School Council webpage

Please visit our page regularly to keep up to date with the work of our School Council

Mrs Robertson is the teacher who meets with School Council once a fortnight. They meet in the school library to plan and share ideas for fundraising, both for school and charity appeals, and look at school policies. They regularly meet with Mr Easton to share their ideas and he is always keen to involve them in important roles around school. Each class elects two councillors and they represent their class from half the school year after which classes elect new councillors.

In addition to our School Council, Year 3 have also formed the Green Council which seeks to look at our to help our school, local environment and planet. Green Council takes place on a Wednesday lunchtime. Everyone is welcome. Our Year 4 Green Council reformed as The Green Team and meet on Tuesday lunchtimes. We share some of their work and achievements here too.

June 2022

Operation Swap Shop—Assembly

Our Year 4 environmentalists have been very busy on Tuesday lunchtimes, working alongside Robson Steele, from the NHS ‘Green Influencer’ Scheme. The pupils have impressed both he and I by their incredible dedication and work ethic. They narrowed down ideas, voted for a project, planned, advertised, made presentations and videos and finally today, June 8th delivered an impressive assembly to their Key Stage 2 peers.

More information about “Operation Swap Shop” will be sent home shortly: the main aims being to reduce clutter and waste going to landfill, to recycle / upcycle items such as clothes, games , toys and books.

May 2022

Green Councillors have been looking into the problems with food waste at a national level and thinking about how to minimise waste at home; composting and in generally being less wasteful with the earth’s resources.

We made some artwork, word searches and compiled some fact cards to submit to the forthcoming #ntclimatestrike Zine all about FOOD—look out for it here https://www.instagram.com/ntclimatestrike/

April 2022

Green Bean Market Recycling Stall

On the last Sunday in April, Green Councillors helped local folk to sort their recycling into the various bins for plastics and batteries. We planted and sold Sunflower seedlings to raise money for the DEC, supporting refugees from Ukraine. We also made greetings cards and on the day helped younger children to make printed cards to raise money for local Refugee Support Centre—Walking With in Wallsend. We had lots of fun preparing the seedlings and cards and made over £80 on the day to share between our two chosen charities.

The Sunflower Seedlings grew from Sunflower Seeds which Eothen Care Home gave us as a thank you for singing Christmas Carols with the school choir in December!

#Payitforward #Kindness in Action!

Lunchtime Litter Pick

Green Councillors helped to clear bags of rubbish blown into the plants and hedging around the surroundings of our school. We couldn’t believe our many small pieces of plastic we collected as well as larger items such as bottles and crisp packets.

We are hoping to arrange more litter picking sessions soon.

Eastbourne House—School Council Egg Hunt

Eastbourne Care Home invited us round to an Easter Egg Hunt in their garden. It was very exciting. We got to wave and sing to many residents who were watching from the lounges and in their rooms. The staff brought us out a drink and a biscuit, while we looked at the eggs the residents had decorated. We were impressed and promised to visit again in the future.

Day of Action for Refugees—March 21st

School council were invited to represent Marine Park at an event supporting all refugees who come to the UK. After school club helped us by making some orange hearts with messages of hope and we took them to a ceremony at the Dome where we planted our orange Hearts in the grass; we listened to music and messages from people who help refuges in Newcastle and North Tyneside. We also heard from Salema, a refugee living in Newcastle, what it feels like to leave your home and come to live in the UK. Then Harry Gallagher, a local poet told three short poems—Mrs Nicholson really liked the one about the difference between bees and wasps—we liked it too. We would also like to find out more about how to help and support refugees in our community.

New Councillors March 2022

At half term we said goodbye and thanked our School Council for all they have done and classes voted in new Councillors

Happy New Year—We wish you a successful 2022

Spring Term

School Councillors have been busy counting Family Credits and helping Mr Easton in assemblies.

Mr McKay asked us to help him to find out which outdoor toys classes would like for playtimes. We took the survey / questionnaire back to class and found out the information.

The toys have arrived and given everyone a boost at playtimes and lunchtimes.

Christmas Cards for Northumbria Hospitals and Christmas Carols at Eothan House

School Council were very kind and gave up several lunchtimes to help make Christmas cards for NHS hospitals Trust and for Eothan Home.

On December the School Council joined our School Choir to sing Christmas Carols at Eothan Home. It was a lovely experience and brought many smiles to the residents and staff. They loved our Hearts for Homes posters too.

We received a thank you video from NHS Trust which you can watch here—can you spy any of the cards you made? https://youtu.be/0Zfq6JzKI60

Eothan Homes wrote us a thank you letter and included some packets of Sunflower seeds which their residents had grown and collected in the summer time. We look forward to planting them.

October—COP26 Pilgrims and Harvest Collection for The Bay Foodbank

School Council also welcomed members of an International Pilgrimage Group from Poland, Germany and the Netherlands, who set off to walk from Poland on August 14th to arrive for the COP26 summit in Glasgow.

Mrs Smith organised for the school to make banners of support and Reception children held them at our school fence as they passed. Year 4 councillors took some poster and some special fudge to share with the pilgrims. (click here) We got the recipe for the Fudge from a COP26 Climate Zine, made by local group Youth Action for Climate. https://drive.google.com/file/d/13cbEz8FkBnpZA4qkTyAxWc-QRF5-t6sU/view

School Council were great at spreading the word and helped with the class collections. The Bay Foodbank were amazed again at how much food and hygiene products Marine Park contributed.

School Councillors have also been very busy counting Family Credits to see which family group will have a non-uniform day before half term!

Welcome to our new school year 2021—2022.

We have got off to a fast start and wish to welcome all our new class councillors (Year Group photos here), as well as our new Anti– Bullying Class Reps. Their photos will appear in our next update and we will have met to discuss ideas to help resolve minor disputes that arise between classmates. We aim to promote a thrive approach to regulating emotions and ensuring points of view are heard, before deciding upon progressive solutions

School Council Assembly on COP26

Keen to encourage our classmates to come up with Climate and Money Saving ways to help save our planet, school council launched NATWEST’s “Climate Savers TOP Trumps Competition” (click here)(closing date September 28th for NATWEST, but runs until Monday 3rd October for school only entries

Winners from around the country will be selected for a very special set of TOP TRUMPS given to world leaders in Glasgow in November.

Winners to our in school competition will win a small ‘environmentally friendly’ prize plus ALL entries will receive one of our very special GREEN FAMILY CREDITS (click here).

Green Bee Day Follow Up

Our Green Bee Day held last July was a great success. All the children told us they really enjoyed the day and are asking for another!. It was a good opportunity to show off our newly developed outdoor areas, and through the dedication and commitment of Marine Park staff we have planned more outdoor learning opportunities than ever for this coming year. Thank you all for your support for the day. We raised a total of £292.60 and the proceeds will be used to carefully enhance our Wildspace sites to enrich the children’s learning.

Pictures from the day can be seen by following the link here. There are also some instructions from our Year 3 councillors on how to make a wild flower seed bomb. Did you throw your seed bomb? Did you see wild flowers grow and find more insects were visiting? We would love to hear about it and if you have any pictures please bring them into school to share with your class. You could earn an eco-tastic GREEN family credit!

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2020/2021 has been a mixed experience for us all at Marine Park First School. We have missed our regular School Council Meetings due to our mix of home and in-school learning, as well as protecting the integrity of our bubbles to help to lower rates of Covid infection in North Tyneside. We would like to thank all our councillors for the fantastic work they have done this first half of the school year and look forward to continuing with our work.

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Summer 2 Half Term

Our school councillors have been super busy this half term, helping plan events, counting credits and setting an example to the school. They are easy to spot too in their bright yellow jackets:

Year 1 School Councillors            Year 1 School Councillors            Year 1 School Councillors            Year 1 School Councillors

Marvellous Meadows

Our meadows have taken successfully and all the school can enjoy searching for and watching the many insects who fly by to visit. We have seen skippers, little and cabbage white. We have creeping buttercups, hoary plantains , clovers, poppies and many more flowers appearing. We are pleased to have been able to help some of our visiting insects, minibeasts and pollinators. Click here for pictures

Green Day & the #BigBeeChallenge

June 28th dawned and the sun shone. Marine Park children arrived in a rainbow of colours; lots of greens; some in black and yellow; and other tops with flowers, bees, butterflies and trees!

See some pictures here..

First we headed out on our Treasure Hunt exploring the Wildlife Garden, The Pond, the Willow Wall, the Veggie plot, our outdoor classroom, the wildflower meadows to name a few. The letters we found spelt out E-N-V-I-R-O-N-M-E-N-T.

We made our wildflower seed bombs (donated to us by Southcliffe Holiday Apartments); School Council had fun making a video of this!  Our finished wild flower seeds can be sown anytime, although ideally when rain is forecast as the clay needs to crack. You can always wet the clay yourselves. How imaginative can you be in finding places to help the bees and other pollinators thrive?

Next we drew designs for a new Green Award Family Credit—several designs will be chosen  and these credits will be given out to those children who are thinking about a more sustainable way of living for our planet, looking after our planet eg reusing, repurposing, recycling as well as kindness and awareness of all animals.

Finally, after learning about bees, their needs and habitats, we designed “Bee Friendly Gardens for the BBC Radio 2 Competition—you can check this out on www.bigbeechallenge .

The winning designs will have a special award presentation, as well as seeing their design transformed into a real garden in an NHS Trust hospital site.

 Summer 1 Half Term

Our new councillors were elected just before Easter and got off to a quick start meeting with Mr Easton and Mrs Worton, our School Improvement Partner. Mrs Worton was eager to find out how home learning and lockdown school had gone for our pupils and she was very impressed by the maturity and insights which their answers gave.

We also voted in deputy Anti –Bullying Reps, so that they can learn the ropes so to speak from existing reps and continue their role in September 2021.

‘Sammy The Seal’ Litter Awareness

In April, our Year 3 & 4 councillors were invited to see the unveiling of a thought provoking art installation, which is to be placed at different sites throughout North Tyneside over the next few months. We went prepared to enjoy the art work, but this piece is designed to ask questions and to make people think about the impact of our rubbish on our environment and the animals who share our space. ‘Sammy’ is a conversation starter and he did just that… you can see some pictures here .

‘Wildflower meadows’

You may have noticed recent additions to enhance he Marine Park landscape and provide more areas for outdoor learning and wellbeing; in March, Justine and Zoe helped us by building a Willow Wall and a vegetable planter. This month, the school council have also been putting their gardening skills to good use by preparing some of our grassy areas as Wildflower Meadows. Taking it in turns to measure and mark out the areas ; dig, fork over and rake the grass to allow space for seeds to grow; we added sand to the soil and finally scattered the all important flower seed. We hope that after half term we will begin to see signs that the flowers have taken. and that we watch the bees, butterflies and other insects come to feed and enjoy. Pictures click here.

Green Day Fundraising

The school council are beginning to plan a fund raising day to let us raise money to continue our plans to develop the outside areas for work and wellbeing…. More about this shortly.

February Round Up

Fundraising Latest...

In January we were able to present a cheque for £257.11 to Oli, to support the Newcastle Foundation Powerchair Football Team and the money was gratefully received. (Click here for Oli’s Thank You message).

The Depaul Society also sent us a lovely letter to thank us for our £257.11 donation to them, explaining how the money will be used (click here to see letter)

You may also remember that last January the children in school overwhelmingly choose to raise money with a non-uniform day for the WWF and the Koala Protector Scheme, following the devastating forest fires in Australia. We have received a thank you from the WWF for the incredible £750 which we raised to help the injured animals and support reforestation programmes. (click here )

Our most recent School initiative has been to raise money toward Unicef’s COVAX mission to supply necessary vaccines to frontline workers around the globe. Mr Easton worked out that every £2 we donated would pay for transport, conditions and staff to give one vaccine—it was as easy as 1, 2, 3! And we attempted to raise £1,234. We shot past our target in less than a week. Click here to see the final total.

New School Councillors

On our return to school we will elect our school councillors for the summer term. The current councillors will share their expertise before handing over at Easter.

Our Anti Bullying Reps, who have been in school, have done a fantastic job these last few weeks and helped out when needed to sort playtime disputes. We are planning for each ABC Rep to show the ropes to a deputy for the summer term.

Green Shoots

As part of the school council’s passion to promote ideas for a sustainable planet, this month we feature our Out of School Club and their new, ’Reduce, Reuse and Recycling Club’. Children in OSC have been learning about the value of reducing waste as well as what happens to our waste once it is collected. Thank you for sharing your ideas OSC! Top tips to get kids recycling - CBeebies - BBC

An Exciting Future in Design Plannng—New Transport Plan North East

School Council were asked to help out providing children’s ideas for the new North East Transport Plan. We were very happy to do so as the plan fits with our aims for a Greener more Sustainable Transport system. Those classes who could got involved, and we found the subject very engaging; the children were very engaged in town and city planning.  Take a look at our transport plans on the Virtual Slide Show! - watch out for bike carrying metros, door to door transport solutions and flying bikes in a future coming to you soon!

School Governor, Mr Miekle was very pleased with our ideas and has shared our presentation with 7 councils! (click link here)

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December Debrief

Bright New Shiny Jackets

All of our councillors have received a new high vis jacket.  If you can give these a half termly wash it will be most appreciated. The jackets will be returned at February half term for our next cohort of councillors.

We continue to support Teracycle recycling scheme for empty crisp packets and handed over our latest bags to Mrs Wilkinson as part of their journey.

Watch out for more school council news in the New Year.

School Council have three exciting Christmas Campaigns

A trio of Thanks

1 Thank you all for your generosity in providing hygiene items and food for The Bay Foodbank—we have taken two carloads of items.

2 Our Festive Biscuit Fundraiser was a great success… thank you so much to our cook, Rachel and the kitchen staff for helping to prepare 520 biscuits on top of all their usual fantastic dinners. The children really enjoyed decorating and then eating their biscuits (see photos here) We have raised £210 each for NFU Powerchair Football Team and for Depaul UK Nightstop programme. (Powerpoint for Depaul UK here)

3           Three Whitley Bay care homes received hand delivered ‘Hearts for Homes’ messages. The school council delivered the hearts and were able to wave and spread Christmas cheer (socially distanced) with the residents at              Eothen House and Eastbourne House. Earsdon Grange residents have been busy making their own messages back for the children and  after quarantining during the holidays we will be able to share these with the children        in school.

The first is a Reverse Advent Calendar for The Bay Foodbank

We would very much like to show our support to those in our community who are going through a hard time this Christmas. The idea is that as well/instead of opening a door of our Advent Calendars to receive something, we donate an item to an Advent Collection Box in class. 

Thank you so much for the food donations you made to The Bay Foodbank at Harvest time. Food donations are still welcome.  However, The Bay Foodbank are also in need of hygiene items such as hand sanitiser, deodorant, toilet roll, toothbrushes & toothpaste. For an extended suggestions list click here or check out www.thebayfoodbank.org.uk.

This is a voluntary contribution and we know that we are not giving you much notice. If you can, please can you help us with our Reverse Advent Calendar?  Donations are welcome over the next 3 weeks until Thursday December  17th.

Our second is “Festive Biscuit Fun”, which will take place on Wednesday 16^th of December

School Council traditionally have a bake sale at this time of year but that is not possible this year. Councillors have organised an alternative, where every child receives a sumptuous Christmas biscuit, made by our School Cook and her team, which the children can then decorate– (allergies will be catered for)

The suggested donation for Festive Biscuit Fun is £1 on Wednesday 16th December.

This year we will split any funds raised between the DePaul UK resource centre on Oxford Street, Whitley Bay and a local Powerchair Football Team that one of our ex-pupils, Oli Crawshaw plays for. DePaul UK are a homeless charity who aim to rehome and support people living on the street. Oli’s sister (a current pupil) has told us that Oli’s football team use specialised wheelchairs to play the game. A contribution towards expensive, equipment will help those in the team make plans for when the league starts again.

Our third is “Hearts for Homes”

The children heard about an idea to bring some cheer to our local community care homes.

They have organised for all the children in school to either decorate or write a festive message in a heart . We are sharing our hearts with Eothen House and Eastbourne House, for whom we normally sing at Christmas time. We will also be sending some to Earsdon Grange Care Home too.

We will get back to you  with some pictures of our artwork and the smiles we receive when we hand them over,

Anti Bullying REPS

A new Anti Bullying Rep (ABRs) has been elected for each class. We are building on our successful work begun two years ago, which saw Marine Park awarded the first ever North Tyneside Youth Council Anti Bullying Award. Each class has its own ABR to preserve our social distancing in class bubbles. The Reps met together and decided although they felt safe in school, that sometimes playground behaviour and friendship issues could lead to some unsettling behaviour.  The ABRs looked at ways to diffuse tensions and help people to feel they had been heard and to come up with solutions to fix their problems. It was a very good session, with all the reps coming up with caring and sensitive ideas for how to help resolve problems. We will update you through the year as to our progress and maybe even share with you some of our Top Tips to resolve conflict.

Cycle for Change Campaign

As part of our involvement with the local community, the school council wanted to support North Tyneside Youth Action for Climate’s  “Cycle for Change” Campaign, September 25th.  We think green transport offers a future for our world. The new cycle lane along the sea front have let us go cycling safely and made it safer for pedestrians to walk on the pavement. We didn’t have much time to prepare for this but thank you to those who were able to get out on the their bikes, on a VERY windy weekend to support the campaign and lend their support to a greener future by uploading their cycling pictures @ntclimatestrike and @marine_school.

September 2020

The start of this new school year was long awaited. We have all, teachers and pupils, enjoyed being together again. Our school councillors, elected in February have all been kept on for the first half of this year. We have met together and discussed some of our plans and wishes for the year ahead; more information on this will follow.

NEW SCHOOL YEAR 2020 - 2021

May 2020

Marine Park were able to collect over 500 empty packets of crisps for recycling.  Click here to look at some photos. of “The Journey of a Crisp Packet”.

April 2020

School has been closed to many pupils since the Government Lockdown began Monday 23rd March… We have very much enjoyed seeing all the photos, emails, tweets and messages which have been sent into school showing what you’ve been doing whilst at home.

Some pupils have been coming into school on various days and they have been a credit to themselves and their families… adapting to different routines and activities; remaining cheerful and positive; at the same time embedding good handwashing and helping us work out practical social distancing routines.

We can’t wait until we can all safely be at school together and the school councillor can resume their roles. We envisage that they will stay in post for September.

March 2020

New Councillors Elected

Our new cohort of school councillors were elected after half term. They were eager to get started and we had met twice before school closed. They have been helping with our crisp packet recycling scheme and set about organising a litter picking rota for playtimes and lunchtimes. The new councillors had many ideas about improvements they would like to introduce to school, including for break times and other fund raising plans. We plan that councillors elected this February will remain in post this September.

Anti Bullying Reps

Some previous councillors were volunteering to become Anti Bullying Reps after half term ; the training for this is on hold now, but we will continue this scheme when we return...watch this space for more details.

February 2020

After hearing about the destruction caused by Australian bushfires the school council asked to do some fundraising to help out. School Council presented a special assembly for the school and held a non-uniform day on Friday 7th February—we had all learnt some facts about Australia as well as finding out more about the work of the World Wildlife Fund (WWF-Australia). Many thanks to ALL the children, parents and carers who contributed. We raised a GRAND TOTAL of £710. We are now officially Koala Protectors; the money we raised will be spent to help look after and rehabilitate ALL the injured wildlife as well as to help replant and restore habitats. We will receive specific updates about how the koalas are fairing and will pass this onto your children throughout the year. Find out more at wwf.org.au.

January 2020

It has been a busy January for the School Council. Knowing how much we value recycling, Mrs Wilkinson who works in school, told us about a project her husband’s work were doing. They are recycling crisp packets.  We are discovering the journey of a crisp packet: Marine Park pupils recycle their lunchtime crisp packets; Mrs Wilkinson hands them over to Mr Wilkinson, who takes them his work, Fergusson’s in Blyth; The crisp packets hitch a lift on a lorry to Haugh Head garage in Wooler ~ before being handed to TERRACYCLE to be recycled at a crisp factory.  You can find out more through https://www.terracycle.com/en-GB/brigades/crisppacket.

November 2019

Our Bake Sale to raise money for research into Huntington’s Disease was a HUGE success.

Please accept a heartfelt thank you, on behalf of all the children and the school council, for your help with our bake sale on Tuesday November 12th.

We were overwhelmed by your generosity of time and money; the number of amazing cakes which your children brought into school; and also your patience in queueing to buy on the night!

A special thank you too to all the members of the school council who came up with the ideas for advertising and promoting our sale; those children who gave up their lunch time to make posters and those in years 3 & 4 whose parents were able to help on the night.

Our After School Club parents also took part; their tombola for cakes means we raised £465 in total from our sale.

This money will be given to the “Huntington’s Disease Association” to continue to fund their research and support families who are affected by this disease.

Click here to look at some photos.

Anti Bullying Award

Marine Park was awarded the first ever Anti-Bullying Award, by the North Tyneside’s Youth Council. The council were impressed by all the hard work last year’s school council had put in and the leaflet about bullying which they made. See our leaflet on our website.

We were presented our award during assembly in anti-bullying week, when we were all wearing odd socks in school, to show we are all individual and unique.

Our ABC Reps from last year will be training up new reps in the New Year to take over in February.

September 2019

ABC Reps

Following last years training our Anti-Bullying Children Reps now have their badges and are out and about in the school yard. Children in school can speak to one of their ABC Reps if they have a friendship / bullying problem at school or in the yard. In November, last year’s ABC Reps will train up new Reps to take over.

Green Ideas

Emile came to our last school council meeting. He was enthused by his experience on the Climate Change March and had several whole school ‘green’ initiatives to suggest to the council. We are thinking through these ideas and some of our own. More on this to follow….

A school councillor chose to organise a litter pick in the school grounds to help School’s Action Against Climate Change. He and a friend went out during golden time and collected a bag full of plastic in a short space of time. This was plastic ‘saved’ from being blown directly into the North Sea—well done boys!

Family Credit Count

School Council have carried out their first family credit count of the year—there is fierce competition between the family groups. Who will have non-uniform day at the end of this half term? Keep working hard to collect those credits.

Welcome Back!

The new school year has begun. Our new school councillors met together and had their photos taken for the School Council Board.

Classes from Years 1 through 4, elected their new councillors for the first half of the 2019-20 academic year.

May 2019

We had a visit from Sergeant Gentry from Northumbria Police who came to talk to us about policing in Newcastle upon Tyne. The children asked lots of interesting questions and were given the opportunity to feedback on how valuable they find police officers. We all gave a reason why we thought police officers had such an important role to play in society.  We recorded these as a thank you and Sergeant Gentry plans to share our thoughts with other officers across the force.

April 2019

The new school council vest have arrived at last. The children look really smart and can be easily identified as being a member of our school council. We continue to work on our own version of a school behaviour policy and are going to share this with Mr Easton soon.

March 2019

We met to discuss our school behaviour policy. School Council are currently working on their own version and when it’s complete we are going to meet with Mr Easton and share our ideas.

We’ve also ordered a new set of Hi Vis Vests for the Councillors to wear which makes them easily identifiable within school. 

February 2019

Voting took place this week for week. The new Councillors are in place and we are looking forward to sharing ideas and feeding back these ideas to classes.

Thank you to the School Councillors who represented their classes for the first half of the year. They did a really good job attending meetings, counting family credits and feeding back ideas to their classes. Voting will take place for the next cohort of Councillors after the half term holiday.

January 2019

Happy New Year from your School Council

We completed another count this week, the children have been working hard and earning lots of family credits.

We met for the first time in 2019 to discuss some projects for the New Year. One idea was that School Council has a go at writing our own policy linked to one of our school policies.

December 2018

School Council raised an amazing £520 for St Oswalds hospice. Thank you to everyone who bought a Festive Friend.

We all enjoyed our Christmas lunch and enjoyed wearing our Christmas jumpers.

School Council worked so hard counting lots of family credits. Well done to the Blue Sapphires who won the prize and got to see Peter Pan at the Playhouse.

November 2018

School Council have been busy discussing ideas for Christmas. We plan to sell Festive Friends in aide of St Oswalds hospice and we are again encouraging everyone to wear their Christmas jumper to our school Christmas lunch.

Watch out for letters giving further information about these two events.

October 2018

We gathered ideas of the sorts of things that the school would like to see on the yard. Many of the ideas are amazing and we are going to prioritise 4 things according to cost and feasibility.

September 2018

Suggestions have been coming in from classes and lots of children have fed back that they would like the School Council to look at ways of improving break times with the addition of toys / activities.

Mrs Souter met with the new Councillors. We talked about the sorts of things we might do this year. Each class have been asked to suggest things that they would like us to work on.

Mr Easton and Mrs Souter took a whole school assembly where they talked about the role of the School Council. The children were asked to go away and think about whether they would like to represent their class up until February half term.

There is a real buzz around School as children prepare to vote for their new School Councillors.  Once the vote in each class has taken place Mrs Souter will meet with the children.

Welcome back!

June 2018

Breaking news

Wednesday 13th June 2018

School Council have organised a sticker swap shop for children who are collecting the stickers for the Russia World Cup. On this day the children can bring in as many stickers as they would like and swap duplicates with their friends. Watch out for a letter in your child’s book bag.

May 2018

We met with Aoife the Chair of the PTA to discuss our ideas for the Summer Fayre. She was amazed at how many ideas we had and is going to feed back to the rest of the committee.

We also held a bake sale which raised £249.86. Thank you to everyone who provided delicious treats for us to sell. We also had a table selling nut free, vegan and gluten free treats.  The money raised has been used to buy Lego for the children to use at break times.

April 2018

School Council met with Mr Easton to feed back about our work this year. He was really impressed with the projects that we are working on and was happy to allow us to have a bake sale to raise funds to buy some Lego.

The children in our school have suggested that we have a reading bench where children can go to read quietly. We are going to write to Rotary who have installed one in another school, to ask if they can install one in our school. We will keep you updated.

March 2018

School Council have worked hard to improve  communication with the children in school. After every meeting we meet with our class to feedback information from the meeting. We are getting some great suggestions from the children and have adopted a you said , we said response approach.

February 2018

Mrs Carter came to our meeting to discuss school lunches. We went back to our classes and asked for suggestions on her behalf. Our children were very creative and came up with lots of ideas. School Council sent these to Mrs Carter and she responded. We have fed the responses back to our classes. One idea in particular, which was toasted sandwiches, has been passed onto North Tyneside—they really liked it and are thinking about adding it to the menu.

We said goodbye to our first set of School Councillors. Each class voted in their new Councillors and we had our first meeting.  We began by choosing four things that we would work on until the end of the year. The first is going to be collecting or purchasing more Lego for use at playtime. Watch out for a letter coming home in the next few weeks.

January 2018

Mrs Souter separated us into groups to represent each year group in the school. We met with some of the candidates who had applied for a teaching role at our school. During the meeting we worked on some Lego challenges and asked them some questions about themselves. At the end of each session Mrs Bates, one of our School Governors, asked us to give some feedback about the candidates. We enjoyed being involved and liked the opportunity to represent our fellow pupils.

December 2017

School Council were involved in organising another successful Christmas Jumper Day which coincided with our school Christmas lunch. Children came into school wearing their jumpers and collected donations for Save the Children. The day was a great success and we raised over £300 for this worthwhile charity. Thank you for your support everyone.

School Council counted lots of family credits during the month of December. Well done to the winning family group who were lucky enough to visit the Playhouse to see Cinderella.

We were asked by Mr Easton, to write some questions which we would ask a candidate who was applying for a job at our school. Mrs Souter was amazed at the quality of questions that we came up with. We are going to ask them to some candidates in January and are very excited to be involved in such an important role.

Breaking News

On Friday 3rd November School Council will be visiting the Dome. We have been invited on a tour and to take part in a workshop. Please look out for a letter in your child’s book bag.

10th October 2017

School Council were asked by Mr Easton to imagine a new member of staff was about to be employed in our school. We agreed on a list of characteristics we would like them to have and suggested a few additions.

Year 3 and 4 Councillors visited Quadrant to take part in a democracy week event. We had a great morning and enjoyed talking to Beth Hargreaves an ex pupil from Marine Park who is now a member of the Children’s Council. She was a School Councillor when she was in Year 4 at our school and hopes to be chosen to represent North Tyneside on the Youth Council. What an amazing achievement Beth!

27th September 2017

What a busy meeting!

School Council had lots to discuss. This included up and coming events such as the Year 3 and 4 visit to the Council Chambers to take part in a democracy week event. Please note the children involved in this will have be given a letter.

13th September 2017

Welcome Back!

This week classes all chose their new School Councillors who will represent their class from now until February half term.  School was full of excitement when the votes were counted and Mrs Souter held her first meeting.

Apologies if your child hasn’t yet been given a yellow bib. We have ordered some new ones and they should arrive soon.

20th July 2017

School Council hope that you all have a wonderful summer. Mrs Souter looks forward to welcoming the new Councillors in September.

Breaking news

Attention all parents of Year 2  School Councillors.

We have been invited to visit the Dome on Monday 17th July 2017. Watch out for a letter coming out soon with further information on the visit.

28th June 2017

Mrs Carter came along to our meeting this morning. She showed us a sample ‘Grab bag’ which she has introduced at lunchtime. Each ‘Grab bag’ contains a sandwich, a packet of crisps, a piece of fruit, a cake and a bottle of water. School Council have been asked to promote the ‘Grab bag.’ Please look out for it as a choice on  your child’s lunch menu. Your child can then head for the pudding counter, make their sandwich choice and grab and go!

13th June 2017

School Council have been busy counting family credits. Who will win the end of year family group prize? Many thanks to School Council for continuing to do an amazing job counting all of those credits!

23rd May 2017

We met today to discuss  our ideas of things that we might like to see as new additions to this year’s Summer Fayre. We plan to meet with Aoife from the PTA in a few weeks to share these ideas. Thank you to the PTA for asking us for our input.

17th May 2017

The School Council from Monkhouse Primary School visited our school to work on a scooter safety project. We started with a working lunch during which we got to know each other. We then used the I pads to research road safety facts; we created posters and a presentation which we plan to deliver during an assembly at both schools. It was really exciting joining together with another School Council and we are very much looking forward to visit Monkhouse in a few weeks.

3rd May 2017

We met today to devise a simple survey which we plan to ask our peers. It is all about children who travel to school on a bike or scooter and whether they wear a helmet. We look forward  to sharing our findings. Do you ride on a bike or scooter? Do you always wear a helmet?

5th April 2017

We met with Mrs Carter our School cook and discussed school lunches. She fed back that she enjoys our meetings and likes to hear the many ideas that the children have on ways to improve our already delicious and nutritious lunches.

Breaking news

We have been contacted by Monkhouse Primary who would like us to become involved in a scooter and road safety project. Watch this space for more information.

8th March 2017

The Year 2 Councillors visited The Dome today. Andrew Coleman the site manager gave us a guided tour and gave us so much information about the history of the Dome. It was such an exciting visit and we all enjoyed looking at the plans. We can’t wait for our next visit. Thank you to Robertsons who invited us; we are looking forward to seeing the Dome when it is complete in Spring 2018.

February 2017

Classes have voted for their new Councillors. I am looking forward to meeting them all and would like to thank our previous Councillors for all of their hard work.

27th January 2017

Representatives from our Year 3 and 4 classes went to the Council Chambers to take part in the North Tyneside Holocaust Memorial Day. The children performed a poem and included actions they had learnt as part of our whole school focus on ‘Talk for Writing.’ They were the youngest children at the event; their behaviour was impeccable. Well Done to all who attended!

Mr Easton, Mrs Parry and I left the service feeling so proud of our children!

Christmas 2016

School Council were very busy over the festive period selling beanies for St Oswald’s, we raised just over £550. A big thank you from St Oswald’s and from us.

Staff and children came into school on Christmas lunch day wearing Christmas jumpers. We donated £1 for the privilege with all donations going to Save the Children. Another big thank you for raising funds for such a worthwhile cause, we raised  just over £420.

Breaking News

Watch out for news of our annual fundraising event. This year we will be raising funds for St Oswald’s Hospice by selling Christmas beanies. Look out for a letter coming home soon.

7th December 2016 Christmas lunch day

School Council will be asking staff and pupils to wear their Christmas jumper to school.

19th October 2016

We met today to continue working on our School Council Health policy. Mrs Carter our school cook will be meeting with us in a few weeks time to discuss school lunches and to listen to our feedback.

5th October 2016

This year School Council have decided to write some policy documents of our own which we plan to share with Mr Easton. We have chosen to begin with a School Council Health policy and began to collate ideas.

21st September 2016

School Council held their first meeting of the year. Mrs Souter welcomed the newly elected members and we each shared some information about ourselves with the group.

September 2016

Welcome back!

There was much excitement in school this week as the children prepared to vote for their new School Councillors. Good Luck to all of those who are hoping to be elected.

Summer 2016

School Council were invited by Robertsons, the builders who are working on The Dome, to be involved in an event for the local press. We had our photograph taken with the Mayor of North Tyneside alongside the art work that our school produced to brighten up the hoardings.

Breaking News

The deadline for collecting Sainsbury's Active Fit Voucher is fast approaching. We have begun the enormous task of counting them. Watch this space and we will announce the total soon.

Some of the voucher will be used by School Council to replenish our stock of playground toys—they should arrive in the Autumn.

27th April 2016

We met today to continue sorting and counting the Active Fit vouchers. Some of the children have volunteered to spend some of their lunchtime counting vouchers and placing them in bundles. Thank you School Council your efforts are much appreciated!

13th April 2016

Mrs Milburn our school PE Coordinator asked School Council to carry out a survey to discover which new sports the children would like to see at lunchtime. Each School Councillor took their survey back to class and when all surveys are complete we are going to analyse the results and feedback to Mrs Milburn.

2nd March 2016

Mrs Carter, our school cook, came to talk to us about the new lunches that she and her staff have been providing. We were then given the opportunity to provide some feedback and influence some of the decision that she makes. In a few weeks she is going to provide some feedback about the small changes that have been made. Democracy in action! Thank you Mrs Carter for taking on some of our ideas.

10th February 2016

Florence’s Mum came into school and talked to us about a charity which she runs abroad called ‘Brighter Futures Zambia.’ Her charity helps support and educate orphaned, vulnerable children in Zambia. She showed us some video clips about life in Zambia and at the end of her presentation she played some wonderful music which we danced along to. We realised how lucky we all are to be able to come to school—in Zambia if you can’t afford a uniform or the resources that you need you can’t go to school.

27th January 2016

School Council were invited to attend the North Tyneside Holocaust Memorial Service at Quadrant. We were asked to prepare a short presentation and six children stood up to deliver it. The children did an amazing job and were given not one but two rounds of applause at the end. They were amongst the youngest children at the event and the work that they produced for display was of a very high standard.

Mr Easton, Mrs Parry and I left the service feeling so proud of our children!

12th January 2016

James from Access Coaching visited school to talk to School Council about the range of sports that they are able to offer. Over the coming weeks we plan to carry out a short survey to find out which sports children in school would be interested in doing. School Council agreed to try some of the games that are on offer at lunchtime—alongside the very popular football organised by Gary.

6th January 2016

Year 3 and 4 School Councillors and Lifelong members are meeting regularly to prepare work for the North Tyneside Holocaust Memorial event on Wednesday 27th January. We feel very privileged to be invited and are working hard to complete work to be displayed and on a short presentation to be delivered on the day.

Our work on Holocaust is linked to Anne Frank’s diary and we are using quotes to inspire us into thinking of ways in which we could improve the world in which we live. We are also celebrating how we are different from others but yet ‘Hand in hand we work together.’

15th December 2016

Marta Josephs from the Holocaust Memorial Committee came into school this morning to hear our plans for tackling this year’s theme which is Don’t Stand By. She spoke to the children about her father who was a holocaust survivor and was very impressed with the ideas that the children had and the responses that they made. She e mailed school a few days later to say how well behaved, polite and articulate the children were. Well Done School Council you showed your wonderful Marine Park Manners.

8th December 2016

For the second year running School Council organised a Christmas jumper day. This coincided with our Christmas lunch and allowed us to raise £447.10 which we have donated to the British Red Cross European Refugee Crisis.

Well Done everyone and thank you for your kind donations.

18th November 2015

Natalie from St Oswald’s came into school to talk to School Council. She gave us some ideas of ways in which we can help! Each member of School Council went home with a charity bag in the hope that they will share the messages that they heard with family members. We hope to become involved in the near future with their work and have plans to encourage pupils to participate in the 2016 Junior Great North Run.

4th November 2015

Justine and her colleagues from Barnardo's came back into school to tell us how the money that we raised during last year’s bike ride was being used to support vulnerable young people in our community. Thank you to them both! We enjoyed the talk and plan to donate some items of toiletries as a thank you from School Council.

14th October 2015

We met today to discuss plans for the year. We have now decided to choose a Secretary for each meeting who will  take notes. The children were really excited and so far we have had Charlie Pellow, Daisy Kelly and Mariella Brechin doing an excellent job! Who will be next?

16th September 2015

The first meeting of the year. I enjoyed meeting the new School Council and am really looking forward to working with them all!

7th September 2015

Welcome back!

Election week—every class is busy choosing their new School Councillors.

9th June 2015

Today we met to discuss the sandwich survey that Mrs Carter has asked us to design. We have decided on four fillings and are going to survey the school before feeding back our findings to Mrs Carter.

27th April 2015

School Council met with Mrs Carter to discuss our school lunches. At the end of a very productive meeting we agreed to find out how popular some new sandwich fillings would be if she were to introduce them onto the lunch menu. Mrs Carter also agreed to provide vinegar and ketchup sachets to be used on our Fish and Chips every Friday.

25th March 2015

Beth and Charlie continue to attend meetings with the Children’s Council. They are feeding back information from meetings to Mrs Souter and she recently heard from the adults who run the Council that they are a ‘credit to our school.’ Well Done Beth and Charlie!

13th March 2015

Red Nose Day 2015 was a huge success. We raised an amazing £649.48! Thank you to everyone who donated and bought cakes from the class cake stall.

A special well done goes to our   Year group Comic Relief star bakers!!

11th March 2015

School Council met Justine and Caroline from Barnados. They came into school to talk to us about the work that they do in their Whitley Bay base and asked for our help with a future fundraising event. School Council will be sending out a letter nearer to the time—watch out for it in your child’s book bag.

2nd March 2015

Amy Slater from St Oswald’s Hospice visited school to thank the children for buying Arctic Friends, which we sold at Christmas, and to collect a cheque for £882.06. We also forwarded the collection buckets which we filled at our Carol Singing event. Amy was overwhelmed by the amount that we have raised and told the children about some of the projects that the money will support.

23rd February 2015

Classes voted for their new Councillors this week. We met to welcome each others onto the Marine Park First School Council and to discuss some of the exciting things that we will all be involved with.

18th February 2015

Mrs Souter presented us with some information on the charity and Comic Relief and we discuss some of the ways in which money donated is being used to support projects in the UK and in Africa.

4th February 2015

We met today to discuss the final plans for Red Nose day. Everyone is really looking forward to a fun day and at the same time supporting such a worthwhile cause.

21st January 2015

On the agenda for today’s meeting was a discussion about Red Nose Day which is on Friday 13th March. As a School Council we voted to support the work of Comic Relief and were very skilled in coming up with some initial ideas. We will update you when we have finalised our plans for the day.

5th January 2015

Happy New Year

From Marine Park School Council

19th December 2014

We sold over 400 Arctic Friends and were delighted to present a cheque to St Oswald’s for £882.06—thank you once again for your support!

Merry Christmas and Best Wishes for 2015

From Marine Park School Council

10th December 2014

St Oswald’s Hospice Arctic Friends

Next week School Council will be selling Arctic Friends on behalf of St Oswald’s Hospice. They will cost £2 and there are four different cuddly toys designs to buy which are intended to be hung on your Christmas tree.

9th December 2014

Christmas Jumper Day

School Council decided to take part in the 3rd Christmas Jumper Day to support the work of Save the Children. We all had fun wearing our bought and homemade Christmas jumpers and managed to raise over £350—thank you for your donations!

We have used £125 of the amount raised to buy an Aqua box which takes water filters and emergency supplies around the world. You can read more about their work at www.aquabox.org

24th November 2014

School Council were invited to visit the Dome to hear about the exciting plans underway to develop it and return it to its former glory! We were taken around the building and took photos of the empty shell. Staff involved in the project have invited us back next year to see how things are progressing.

Exciting news! Beth Hargreaves and Charlie Pellow were elected by our School Council to represent our school on the North Tyneside Children’s Council. They have been invited to the next meeting and to a training session in December. We wish them luck and look forward to hearing about the projects that they are to become involved in.

17th and 18th November 2014

Julia Bradwell who is part of the participation team for North Tyneside Council came into school today to provide us with ‘Skilled Up Training.’ During the one and half day training session we learned how to work as a team, how to listen to each other and how to become more skilled in undertaking the important role of being a School Councillor.

11th November 2014

Our Year 3 and Year 4 School Councillors along with the Lifelong Members, Mrs Souter, Mr Easton and Mrs Parry all attend the Whitley Bay High School Remembrance Service. During the service Samuele and Ruby were invited to lay a wreath on behalf of all First and Primary Schools in North Tyneside. All of the staff who attended were very proud of the children from our school who represented us all so well with their mature and respectful behaviour.  You can watch the Tyne Tees News coverage of the event here.

14th October 2014

School Council have met a few times over the last week or so to take part in a ‘Virtual School Council’ meeting. We were given an agenda by the North Tyneside Children’s Council and asked to submit our responses. These will be collated with the responses from other schools and used to support decision making in North Tyneside.

24th September 2014

The Sainsbury’s order has finally arrived! The children are enjoying using the new playground toys. Thank you to the members of last year’s School Council who selected the toys—they are proving to be very popular.

10th September 2014

Today we got together for our first meeting of the year. Everyone introduced each other and Mrs Souter welcomed us all to the School Council. We are all really excited about working together!

2nd September 2014

Welcome back!

There was much excitement in school this week as the children prepared to vote for their new School Councillors. Good Luck to all of those who are hoping to be elected.

11th July 2014

Thank you to everyone who donated money during our non– uniform, football themed fun day. We raised over £360 which is going to be donated to the Oxfam Syria Appeal and had lots of fun using the giant inflatable goal.

Well done to all of our Year group winners!!

Early Years: Max Elliot (RE)

Year 1: Euan Kirkpatrick (1N)

Year 2: Jake Johnson (2E)

Year 3: Luke McDonald (3N)

Year 4: Owen Eastlake (4N)

We hope that you enjoy the long summer break!

Message from Mrs Souter:

Voting for our new School Councillors will take place in Sep