Swoosh

Schools: Listen to us!

Posted by Snow.. from Vale Of Glamorgan - Published on 03/10/2011 at 16:20
3 comments » - Tagged as Education, People, Topical, Volunteering

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Yn Gymraeg

I hope everyone’s having a great start to the new school year. (For those of you who have left school, how is it on weekdays without a massive group of young people on the loose?) Mine started off okay, was nothing special, but then again school never is and actually neither was this...

In my school we have the school council (like any other), but I think the school I attend may be slightly different that some of the others. We have sub groups, called committees, and each one has a specific area of the school that it is in charge of e.g.

Environment committee
Health and fitness committee
Learning committee

Each sub group is made up by two members from each year group and they are also on their year council; as I am in Year 11, I’m in the highest year council in the school (this is because we have no sixth form, and although this is totally irrelevant, any good sixth form suggestions in the Vale or Cardiff area are more than welcome as a comment below! :D). This also means the suggestions and feedback from our council (Yr11) are normally more plausible than the from the lower groups.

We had our first year council meeting the other day and already I am absolutely disgusted by some of what came up! Friday our Head Boy and Head were supposed to be elected; we have a Head Girl, Deputy Head and Deputy Head Boy; I know it makes no sense what so ever! A few people in my form class then asked me and the other Councillors to bring it up in the meeting. The majority of people on the council agreed it made no sense. As a result of this being brought up, so were other topics such as: the “election” of the School Council Chair; the prefect selection process; and the fact we NEVER get feedback that could potentially be beneficial from teachers.

As the Yr 11 council, we were told the Head Teacher had asked our opinion on how the Chair of the school council should be elected. We were told it had to be someone from Yr 11 and they could not be Head Boy or Head Girl. After some discussion we thought an election (similar to form rep elections for year council) should happen. This way, someone who didn’t get the chance to chair on the year council could still chair the school council.

We were told that this was a good idea and would happen. When we got back to school this term, we found out that the Head Teacher and head of our year decided that they would chose who would chair school council, without even asking the rest of the school what they thought!

It’s all too similar to previous selections of Head Boy and Head Girl. All the prefects had to write down their name on a piece of paper saying who they would like to become Head Boy and Head Girl. With the majority of people then saying the names that they had chosen, it was obvious which pupils would be in the running for it...

But yet again hardly any of these pupils were in the actual running, as the teachers chose them without acknowledging us or our opinion; they even ignored what the rest of the staff had to say about it.

After the Head Girl, Deputy Head Girl and Deputy Head Boy had been selected nobody in the running was given any feedback - what made them stand out or what they lacked. But everyone wanted to know. They weren’t even told why there was no Head Boy.

Finally, the prefect selection process. For this, anyone who wanted to be a prefect had to write a letter saying why they would be a good for the role and why they should be chosen. We were then put on a two week trial to prove that we were good enough for the job. It had to be the most unfair decision made.

A list of pupils wanting to be prefects was put up in the staff room for teachers to put a signature next to the names they thought would not be a very good prefect. The teacher supervising our meeting told us that there were two pupils who had a number of signatures next to their names (meaning not their choice for prefects) and yet there were some pupils who had no signatures next to their names (meaning their choice for prefects) and they are no prefects!

As pupils, we also noticed that some of the more not-so-well-behaved pupils in the year became prefects, and the ones who would have been perfect for the role were not, simply because the teacher did not like them.

We noted all of the above down in detail and approached the teachers with it, but we have all obviously been ignored here, and I’m sure the whole point of having a school council, Head Boys and Girls, and prefects was to help get the pupil voice heard more often and taken into account - which has not happened.

I’m sure the school I attend is not the only school that does this, and that there is more than likely to be a right in the UNCRC (United Nation’s Convention on the Rights of the Child) that allows children and young people to have their views and opinions taken into account.

Actually, I know there’s one:

Article 12, which states that “all children and young people have the right to have their voices and opinions heard and taken into account”. Why is this not being used in schools?! To all senior staff etc. in schools, LISTEN TO US! The majority of pupils behave for you and give your schools a good reputation. The behaviour and reputation would get even better if you just

- listen.

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