Student Council helping the PA with school policies .

This week , we were delighted to welcome Laura and Elaine from the Parents Association who came to school to conduct a focus group session with our Student Council around the use of mobile phones, the internet and social media in primary school. 
 

We had a wonderful discussion and some really valid points were raised . The children were great at putting themselves in the shoes of how a child in second class might feel vs a child in 6th class.

The key points of this discussion will be fed back to staff as well as the PA. 
 

Today’s discussion also linked to some of our key rights :

#3 The best interests of the child 

#12 respect for children’s views

#13 sharing thoughts freely 

#16 protection of privacy 

#17 Access to information 

#18 responsibility of parents 

In February , our school held a special ‘Wellbeing Week’. During the week , we covered many of our child rights.
 

We started on the Tuesday with “Safer Internet Day” . The Student Council visited their Buddy classes and reminded them of our school Internet rules . We linked this to the following rights :

(1) 3 - best interests of the child

(2) 16- protection of privacy 

(3) 17- access to information 

(4) 28- access to education 

(5) 34 - protection from sexual abuse 

On Wednesday, we marked “World Children’s Mental Health Day”. We reminded everyone to be kind an nice to everyone and check in on our friends if they seem upset. We linked this to the following rights:

(1) 3 - Best interests of the child 

(6) 6- life survival and development 

Thursday was a special day when we celebrated Neurodivergence and inclusion. We respect everyone in our school no matter where they are from. We linked this to the following rights : 

(1) 2- no discrimination 

(2) 7- name and nationality 

(3) 12- respect for children’s views

(4) 14 - freedom of thought and religion 

(5) 23 - children with disabilities 

(6) 30 - minority culture and language 

(7) 22 - refugee children 

finally on Friday , we marked healthy eating and nutrition day. The Student Council reminded their Buddy class to keep treats to a Friday and try to eat a healthy lunch. We linked this to rights :

(1) 24- health , water , food , environment 

(2) 6- life survival and development 

As part of Catholic Schools Week, we celebrated “Grandparents Day”. Many of our 6th class student council members were involved on the day , from directing grandparents to classrooms , baking and serving delicious treats , topping up milk jugs for tea whilst the adults served the teas/coffees and reciting poems , stories and singing songs. A great day was had by all and it was a lovely way to include our school community . A special that you to Ms Bradshaw , Ms Bradshaw’s 6th class and the 6th class student council members . 
 

We also had some Student Council members from 5th class who performed in the school choir as part of Grandparents Day so a special thank you to them too. 

Student Council Suggestion Box

We met recently and opened our Student Body suggestion box . We were delighted to see so many ideas and we were impressed too. 
 

One of the most common suggestions was to continue to improve the school garden by planting more flowers, fruit and vegetables. The Student Council can confirm , we have 5 new raised beds and will begin planting in March once the frost is completely gone. 
 

Next up, many children asked for benches around the school. This project is underway and we can’t wait to reveal the finished item! 
 

Football on the yard was both positive and negative with some classes enjoying it and others saying the ball was going too far across the yard. The Student Council visited their Buddy class to remind everyone of the football rules and we think that we have resolved the concerns now . Hopefully everyone will play nicely . 
 

Our Student Council Suggestion box is so important to us and links in with right 12 (respect for children’s views) and 13 (sharing thoughts freely). Keep the ideas coming . Thank you . 

World Children's Day - November 20th 

Monday 20th November was World Children's Day. The Student Council visited their Buddy Classes to tell them about this. We included this World Children's Day as part of our overall 'Anti-Bullying /Kindness Celebration'. 

There were different events all week 

eg Mindful Monday 

Thoughtful Tuesday 

Walk with a friend on Wednesday 

Thankful Thursday 

Friendship Friday/Care and Connect Day 

The student council created a collaborative display to celebrate children everywhere. We hope you like it!

Anti Bullying /Kindness Week 20th - 24th November

The Student Council have been helping the vice- principal promote our whole school 'Anti - Bullying and  Kindess Week ' this week by visiting our Buddy Classes and reminding everyone to be kind and nice to everyone - that includes students, staff and not forgetting the people we meet on our way to school eg the lollipop lady. 

Another popular suggestion in the Student Council suggestion box was to have a 'PJ Day or a Onesie day ' . Ms Byrne loved this idea and thought that this Friday 24th would be a great day to mark the end of Anti Bullying Week with a 'Comfy Clothes PJ Day' . 

This ties in with a lot of our rights including: 

Right 2: No discrimination 

Right 7 : Name and Nationality

Right 8 : Identity 

Right 14: Freedom of thought and religion

Right 19: Protection from violence

Right 23: children with disabilities. 

Right 30 : Minority culture , language and religion. 

So many of our UNICEF child rights are connected to anti bullying and kindness. We respect everyone in Pope John Paul’s. 

Student Council Updates

This month, we have noticed that some children are bringing a lot of sweet treats to school and not just on a Friday. Teachers asked the Student Council if they could help promote healthy eating and remind the students to try their best to keep treats to Fridays.  We are trying to encourage everyone to eat a healthy lunch at school . Having a healthy lunch will give you energy and help you concentrate and focus during lessons.  We visited our 'Buddy Classes' and asked them 'What types of healthy snacks could we put in our lunchboxes?' - We got some great answers such as apples, yoghurts, rice cakes , sandwiches etc. We also asked what type of drinks might be a healthy choice? - The children were great coming up with suggestions of milk and water. 

The student council collected empty packets of some of the most common treats found in lunchboxes . We looked at  the amount of sugar in each and created this display. We chose to display it near the yard toilets and the PE hall as everyone in the school would see it. We were surprised to find out that some treats contain a lot of sugar! 

This healthy eating ties in with our Rights number 6 'The right for life, survival and development' and also right number 24 'the right to health water , food and the environment'. 

The student council will be taking this further by planting some healthy vegetables in the school garden after Christmas. This was something that has been mentioned in our 'Student Council Suggestion Box'. We also got lovely new flower beds as part of the 'GIY Grow in Schools Campaign' so thank you to them for that. You can see our new flower beds just outside the main school entrance. Thanks to Gregor for helping to build the beds. 

We will be back to chat about healthy eating in January. 

Student Council 2023-24

The Student Council held their first meeting today. We had a very productive meeting . We discussed our plans for our UNICEF Silver Child’s Rights Award this year. We all received our badges and were assigned our “buddy class”. Representatives will visit their Buddy class between now and next Friday to introduce themselves and explain about our suggestions box and noticeboard . 

The Student Council are seeking new members 

A big thank you to our outgoing Student Council members . We wish them all the very best of luck in secondary school and hopefully some might continue on the Student Council in their new schools .

We are now recruiting new members from 5th class. We are looking for two members from each 5th class . Application forms have been distributed. Please return forms (signed and completed) to Ms Magner in “Birch” Room (formerly 11B) no later than Friday 29th September. Thank you 😊 

UNICEF Child Right’s Award Received 🥉

Congratulations to Ms Magner and our PJP Student Council who have been awarded the “Bronze Certificate “ after successfully completing year 1 of the UNICEF Child Right’s Programme. We hope to continue next year and work towards earning our “Silver Certificate”. Well done to the Student Council who worked so hard to achieve this award 🥉 We really enjoyed celebrating with you at our PJP Day of Celebrations 🥉

The Green Team/Green School Committee

This Spring , we have added some new planters to the school garden following requests in our Student Council box for more vegetables and flowers in our garden.

The Student Council will be working with the Green Team to help co-ordinate the planting. 

Visiting Teachers 

This week , we were very lucky to host teachers from Estonia and Spain. Our junior school St Sylvesters is involved in an Erasmus programme and the teachers wanted to see a senior school and learn about the things we do so we invited them for a visit. Some of our student council representatives from 5th and 6th class gave them a guided tour. 
 

We spoke about right 28 and how every child has the right to access to education . It was wonderful to hear about schools in Estonia and Spain. They visited on a great week too as they got to experience some céilí dancing in the hall and hear some extra Gaeilge on the corridors. 
 

Many thanks to Maria in 6th class who helped to translate things into Spanish for us .

Thank you to everyone for visiting our school. 

In February, the Student Council went on their first school trip to visit the “Viewpoints” Exhibition in Malahide Library.

The exhibition consisted of nine paintings by popular children’s books authors and illustrators. Each painting was inspired by one of the rights from the Convention of the Rights of the Child.

They included the right to education , the right to equality and the right to nationality/identity.

We had a great day and had an opportunity to sit and read for a while too . Thanks a million to Julie and all the staff in Malahide Library . 

Ms Duffy’s 4th class created this lovely display to celebrate Chinese New Year and also a language spoken by one of the children in their class . We think it looks great ! Well done everyone ! 

Pupil Voice in Action: The Literacy Plan

The teachers and staff are currently reviewing our whole school literacy plan and have approached the Student Council for help.The council have been assigned the task of finding out about what children really think about English lessons in school ? What are their favourite parts ? Do they like poetry or grammar or drama?What would they like to see more of? The council are developing a digital survey (to keep with our Green Schools promise to use less paper) and will be surveying focus groups from every year level to get their opinions .. watch this space … 

6th classes visit the Dáil 

Many of our 6th class representatives had an opportunity to visit the Dáil just before Christmas with their whole class. They met with Alan Farrell and he explained how the Dáil operates. Our 6th class reps then spoke to the 5th class reps and also our neighbours in Oliver Plunkett’s NS about what they learned. 

Check out our new Student Council Suggestion box. You’ll find it opposite our dedicated Student Council noticeboard on the 4th/6th class link

corridor. Please drop in any suggestions you have and we will get members of the Student Council to discuss these at our next meeting . We want to hear your pupil voice! 

Following on from our first right #17 Every child has the right to access information we have worked to update our new school library to include books in different languages so that every child in the school can find a suitable book in their language- it’s a work in progress but we hope that every child can feel included at D.E.A.R. (Drop Everything And Read) Time. The library is located in the 3rd class corridor and this books will be in a designated language section. They include books in Bengali, Polish, Italian and Spanish to name a few ! 

Pupil Voice in Action : Zoom Meeting with St Oliver Plunkett’s N.S.

As we approach the end of term , we organised a meeting via Zoom with our Student Council colleagues in our neighbouring school , St. Oliver Plunkett’s.

St.Oliver Plunkett’s have had an active student council for many years whereas we are only in our first full year. It was brilliant to share ideas and compare and contrast how our councils work.

We discovered that how we elect the councils is slightly different in both schools but like us every member has a badge so they are easily identifiable around the school. 

We told them all about our work with the UNICEF Right’s Ribbon Programme and in doing so covered right #42 “Every child should know about children’s rights”. We are working to spread the message to other schools. 

We enjoyed the chat so much , that we will organise another zoom before the end of the year . We wish all the children in “Ollies” the very best with their exciting student council plans and it is fantastic to have two schools working together and building those connections .

Thanks to Mr Eagney and all the Student Council members is St.Oliver Plunkett’s and thanks to Ms Ní Chonchubair for allowing the PJP council to use her classroom for the zoom

call. 

Christmas Cards of Kindness 

Following on from our “Friendship/Kindness & Anti-Bullying Week” , the Student Council decided to spread the kindness further and do something for the local community .

We joined forces with the organisation “Carepack.ie” and An Post . We designed and made Christmas Cards for a local nursing home. Ms Magner contacted “Carepack” and we were assigned 26 people to make cards /drawings for . 
 

We hope our “cards of kindness” will brighten up someone’s day. We know many of the people receiving the cards have no family or friends to visit them at Christmas so we really hope getting a card in the post will be a nice surprise! 
 

Thanks so much to An Post for sponsoring the postage too. 

As part of the whole school ‘Anti- bullying , Kindness and Friendship Week”, the student council with the help of a few other fourth class children created their minion display to promote kindness.

This month , we have highlighted a number of rights that are connected to respecting each other , respecting our names , religion, language , culture and where we are born. 
 

This week was a great way of linking the Rights of The Child with our school subject of SPHE and Wellbeing. We managed to integrate it into our art display too.

It is only November , but we have already worked under the three headings for our rights ribbon award for year 1.

Learn = Promote and display child rights around the school. We are doing this with our new rights every fortnight and when we visit our Buddy Classes

Participate = We linked article 24 to our first fundraiser “Trick or Treat for Temple Street” where we successfully participated in raising €1,505 for the hospital.

Enjoy = Connecting childrens rights to other areas of the curriculum. In November , we connected rights 2,7,14,16 &30 to the SPHE whole school “Anti-Bullying , Friendship and Kindness Week”. It also connected to our whole school behaviour plan - Our PJP Golden Rules .

Super progress and it’s only November ! Well done everyone ! 

November Articles : 2, 7, 14 , 16 & 30 

For the month of November , we have selected 5 key rights to promote.

They are numbers 2, 7 , 14 , 16 and 30.

We are working to connect these rights to our whole school SPHE “Anti Bullying /Friendship & Kindness Week”. This takes place from 21st-25th November.

These rights we feel are also connected to our PJP Golden Rule “I am kind and gentle”.

To summarise the above rights it means we should respect everyone. It doesn’t matter what county or country you were born in , what language you speak at school or at home , what religion or cultures you practise - we are all children and have the right to be respected.

No one should bully us and make fun of our names, family name, traditions , language or culture . That is unkind . 
 

Also for older classes , number 16 refers to the right to privacy - we should be careful online and never send photos or stories of our friends without their permission . We should also speak kindly in text messages .

The Student Council feel strongly that these rights are very much connected to our “Anti Bullying and Friendship/Kindness Week”. 
 

We updated our noticeboard to promote these. 

The Student Council and Ms Magner would like to said a huge “thank you” to everyone that supported our first ever fundraiser “Trick or Treat for Temple Street”.

The costumes were amazing and even the teachers , SNAs and secretaries got involved - well done to everyone! 
 

We are thrilled and amazed to announce that after careful counting (thanks to everyone that helped) we raised a grand total of €1,505 !!! What an amazing achievement!

It’s amazing how all those copper coins we have lying in jars add up to such a whopping amount ! We are so grateful . 
 

The money has been sent to Temple Street Hospital and we have no doubt that it will go to great use. Míle buíochas to all . 

We were asked by UNICEF to conduct a survey amongst staff and students to see just how much they already know about children’s rights and how much work the Student Council will have to do in promoting them! 
 

The results were very interesting ! 
We appreciate all feedback - some great ideas were suggested by students from traffic light systems for feelings , to more fun dress up days to holding the doors for others . These are all things the student council will discuss . 

Student Council Update 

We held another official student council meeting today. 
 

All members received a copy of the Child’s Rights magazine from UNICEF.

We spoke about their classroom visits from last week and the children feedback things they learned .

All reps visited their Buddy classes today to check up on how they were doing with the rights programme. They introduced a new right article 24 - the right to a clean environment. We think this is so important as everyone in our school has the right to work in a tidy classroom

with clean toilets , a tidy PE hall , clean water etc . In school, we must work as a team and keep the areas as tidy as we found them .this also ties in with our PJP Golden Rules “I am Gentle” and “I look after property”. 
 

Every class received two posters about article 24- We suggested they pin them by the classroom toilets , the wet/sink area , beside the bins etc .

Thank you to all the children and teachers for listening. We look forward to visiting you on Friday to see your costumes and hopefully raise a few Bob for Temple Street Children’s hospital.

Thank you for working with us . 

Our first fundraiser -Friday 28th October

This Friday 28th October , we are running over first PJP Student Council Event.

In line with article 24 (everyone has the right to healthcare) we want to fundraise for children’s health and we’ve chosen Temple Street Children’s Hospital.

We’ve registered for their “Trick or Treat for Temple Street” campaign and we are asking that everyone (teachers included ) make a special effort to dress up this Friday and if they can they might like to make a small donation to Temple Street Hospital - we are suggesting you collect the copper 1c, 2c and 5c coins lying around your house.

Members of the Student Council will visit your class to tell you more . They will also stop by on Friday to collect donations and see your costumes . Happy Halloween 🎃 

Our fifth and sixth class student council reps were presented with their badges at assembly this week. The reps will wear the badges every day so keep an eye out for them around the school.

Every rep has been assigned a “Buddy Class” . The reps will visit these classes once a fortnight to tell them about the latest right and why we are raising awareness on this right . 

Right of the Fortnight

Article 17 - Every child has the right to access appropriate information 

The Results are in - Our 2022-23 Student Council is here 

Teachers: 

Ms Marissa Magner

Students : 

• Fionn Corcoran (Mr Freeman)

• Jane Stokes (Mr Freeman)

• Tess Deegan (Ms Bennett)

• Cillian Lawton (Ms Bennett)

• Grace Carolan (Ms Ní Chonchubhair)

• Joseph Noonan (Ms Ní Chonchubhair)

• Tomás Mylan (Mr Murphy)

• Amber Costello (Mr Murphy)

• Zara Mc Carthy (Ms Mc Kenna)

• Sean Duffy (Ms Mc Kenna)

• Rian Gardiner (Ms Mc Carthy)

• Lisa Fitzpatrick (Ms McCarthy)

• Pádraig Guinan
• Carraig Shaw
• Elizabeth Mc Govern
• Sarah Breen
• Matthew McGovern
• Aoibhinn Whelan
• Dylan Kidd
• Caoimhe Heneghan
• Luke Pender
• Lucy Moloney

Latest News 

This year , we will continue what we started in term 3 last year. We are working towards the award of becoming a “Child Rights Respecting School”. This year we good to achieve our bronze award 🥉 

There are three stages to this award - Learn, Participate and Enjoy 

We are starting in term 1 with the “Learn” section and hope to increase awareness of child rights around the school. 
 

Our first two steps in achieving this award are :

(1) Have an active Student Council

(2) Communicate the work of the Student Council with the rest of the school .

We will do this by a variety of methods including : 

(a) Student Council Noticeboard (located on 4th/5th class corridor )

(b) Our school website 

(c) Our school Twitter Feed 

(d) Buddy System - every class in the school will have a Student Council representative assigned to them. It is their role to visit their class following meetings and update the class on any decisions made .

(e) School newsletter 

PJP Student Council Announcement 

Ms. Magner will be at the 5th class assembly this Thursday 22nd September to explain the role of the Student Council in PJP. 
 

The council are recruiting two new members from every 5th class. Anyone interested must get a copy of the application form from

Ms Magner on Thursday and return it to her in room 11B no later than Friday 30th September. 

World Map made from Lego

Our vice principal added a fun map with the help of many of our 5th and 6th class reps and their classmates to the corridor.

It highlights the right to play but also all the different countries in the world.

We hope to look closer at the different nationalities and languages spoken in our school this year . 

Today was a big day for our Student Council as we welcomed our first ever guest speaker , Lydia Mc Carthy from UNICEF Ireland.

It was such a pleasure to welcome Lydia. She brought a selection of posters to share with the school and explained the concept of the Child Right’s Ribbon Award to us. Lydia ran through the Rights of a Child and highlighted so key rights that we are already working on in school.

We spoke about how this is a work in progress and it will take a few years to earn the award but we are on the start of our journey ! 
 

 Lydia gave us some brilliant suggestions for example surveying the pupils in our school to hear their opinion on a topic and reminded us that as a Council we need to communicate what happened at meetings with our classmates. She was impressed to hear we have a page on the school website , that we are tweeting let updates and that we have a new noticeboard.

Members of the council asked some brilliant questions and Lydia’s visit really highlighted the role a Student Council can play in a school. 
 

Thank you very much to Lydia for visiting and we look forward to working with her over the next few months. 

Pope John Paul II NS Student Council

This year, we have formed our first ever PJP Student Council.

We had over 70 applicants apply from 5th and 6th class. The standard was really high and we were so impressed by the wonderful ideas the children have put forward . We have very exciting times ahead . 
 

The members of the 2022 Student Council  are: 

Pádraig Guinan

Paul Brun

Cara MacDiarmuid

Amelia O Gorman

Carraig Shaw

Elizabeth Mc Govern

Sarah Lyons

Sarah Breen

Matthew McGovern

Róisín Hendrick

Aoibhinn Whealan

Ava Glover

Dylan Kidd

Charlie Bissett

Grace Doorley 

Aaron Zhang

Caoimhe Heneghan

Luke Pender

Lucy Moloney

Christian Bonke

Emilia Walsh 

Teacher: Ms Marissa Magner

Thank you to everyone that applied . We were thrilled to see such an interest in the council! 

UNICEF Ireland

We are working to become a certified “Child’s Rights School” with the help of UNICEF Ireland.

Every class has been given a poster to display listing the basic human rights for children.

These include things we often take for granted like the right to play or the right to read. 
 

We have a meeting with UNICEF on 24th May.