The Student Representative Council (SRC) is a group of students that dedicate their time and enthusiasm to organise ways for all students to participate and contribute to the school and the wider community.
All students are given the opportunity to run for a SRC position through annual School Captain and Class Representative Elections. Through this process, two representatives are elected from each class to attend regular meetings. SRC members are also committed to sharing the ideas of their peers, contributing to meaningful projects and discussions and reporting back to their class on current initiatives. The SRC members are formally acknowledged for their hard work during a whole school assembly.
2017 Projects
This July South West Rocks Public School has been a part of the "Plastic Free July" campaign by rewarding students who use re-usable plastic containers in their lunch boxes.
Waste free July
Our school led campaign started with a spark from one of the primary students who came to the Student Representative Council (SRC) meeting to introduce the idea. The SRC decided to participate in Plastic Free July by rewarding students who bring their lunch and recess in re-usable containers instead of "one use" soft plastic and packaging. The reward tickets were put into a raffle which will be drawn during our Education Week Open Day. The winners of this raffle will receive plastic free lunchboxes and reusable lunch bags kindly donated by "Litter Free Living".
The reason the South West Rocks Public School SRC decided to participate in this event is because we wanted to make our school and the community understand that we need to decrease the amount of plastic that we use so our environment can be a healthy, waste free place.
Recycling and Sorting Rubbish
The SRC have been busy brainstorming ideas, organising resources and educating students about recycling. We have allocated a yellow bin to each classroom as well as a yellow bin underneath the COLA for recyclable lunch and canteen waste.
The SRC have been busy reinforcing positive behaviours by rewarding students who sort their rubbish appropriately. The students have many great ideas that we will be working towards this year including slideshows, books, competitions, waste free lunches and plays.
"Water Wise" Book Project
SRC Students from K-6 have been working on a small book for our school. The theme cycles around water and rubbish in our local environment. SRC students reflected on the lessons from Cascade Environmental Education Centre to share their experiences with other students. They planned a story line that could be developed into a story book for educating other people and future students about being "Water Wise" and "Waste Wise". The SRC have used a variety of quality picture books to develop their own creative writing. Students have also been hard at work developing impressive illustrations to support the story.
A Co-Operative Clean Up
Article by Rodic, Phoebe, Ollie & Mekky
Did you know that more than 100 000 animals die each year from plastic bags? Did you also know, in our local area that cattle die from ingesting plastic bags? These are disturbing facts about our impact on the environment from rubbish. But what can we do to help solve this problem?
Students from South West Rocks Public School helped to clean up the local environment by participating in Clean Up Australia Day last Friday, 3/3/17. We looked for rubbish around and outside of the school grounds and found lots of small pieces of plastic, glass and cigarette butts.
Unfortunately the most common type of waste from our Clean Up event was soft plastic gloves that were used for the safety and hygiene of all the students and teachers involved. Next year we hope to have re-usable fabric gloves or tongs. These items could be reused each year and for many other school activities including gardening.
The rubbish we collected from our Clean Up Site was sorted into recyclables, organics and landfill. By sorting the rubbish we aim to reduce, reuse and recycle instead of sending it all to landfill. We have learnt a lot from sorting our waste and hope to have coloured bins in our school to continue reducing the amount of rubbish that goes to the tip. We hope that this also motivates children to put rubbish in the right bin so it does not end up in our local gardens, parks, farms or waterways.
