Does your Primary school have a School Council?

[Donk]

I didn't realise that many Primary schools have school councils now! What do they do? Which years are involved? What do you think of them?

Our School Council has come up with Africa Week (raising money for and twinning with an orphanage in Uganda, exploring African crafts and music with the help of Black British families at the school etc), a Friendship Stop in the playground, and Buddies - older children with special baseball caps to help the younger ones arriving and at play-time.
They are an excellent idea.

i got the idea - and i am not sure where from that this is a govt initiative?

i think its a fair old pile of shyte. my dd was on teh council (secondary school) she didn't go on it this year becuase it was boring and she missed some lessons that she liked.

now she tells me they are thinking about bringing in a new school uniform becuase boys have to wear ties and girls dont.

fine - i am made of fkin money i am. thees a big tree in the garden with coins on it - i pick every day.

some times kids just have to be told. all this interaction ownership of decision making is a ball of old shite.

she helped interview a drama teacher today!

blimey, kids interviewing teachers??!!!

i know - its w.r.o.n.g

Sounds as though there are lot of interesting and productive things going on in school councils - so why so negative about it Custardo?
And why is it wrong for students to be involved with the interview process for candidates for jobs?

the same reason they are not allowed to vote at 13. becuase they are not looking for the factors which will encourage them to learn they are looking for "cool" and funny.

i work in a field where the tern" ownership" is banded around all too often. sometimes it has to be a dictatorship - i say so and thats that.

i absolutley do not think my child is qualified or objective enough to give any form of useful feedback int he interview of a teacher.

she was not democratically elected for this either - she was picked, so there was no excersise in democracy here.

she is too young and too selfish ( in a - i'm a girl and a teenager way) to grasp the concept of - not who you think is good, but who would be best for the class - think of your class - oh come on

some things just have to be done my adults. and i tink chosing a teacher is one of them. the concept of involvement is lovley and cuddly and really appeals to my community worker socialist principles but in reality its like communism - it just doesn't work and ends up being a pointless futile excersise.

as for school council and raising money - well great - but thats not what a school council is supposed to be for - its may be a great by product, but the council is supposed to let children have a say which will effect change in school and make decisions to that effect.

i absolutley hate consutlation or participation of anyone when it is meaningless. on policy decisions they haven't got a say. so whats left - fundraising for tigers or sommat.

Custy, our (secondary) school council wanted 'rewards' for not throwing little. To which I wanted to say

'how about the fucking reward of not going to school in a place that looks like a tip and had rats and seagull shitting everywhere'

Rewards my arse

We should get together sometime. We'd get on well!

Custy, our (secondary) school council wanted 'rewards' for not throwing litter. To which I wanted to say

'how about the fucking reward of not going to school in a place that looks like a tip and had rats and seagull shitting everywhere'

Rewards my arse

We should get together sometime. We'd get on well!

lmfao! :) :)

Yes, my children's school has one. Two reps are elected from each class, including the Reception classes. They do fundraising cake sales etc, playground activities and charity events - they sent buddies to Tony Blair for Make Poverty History for instance.

It's all very sweet, but I have a few misgivings. When the first elections were held, that caused a greater emphasis on popularity than had previously been the case. I've noticed my children now have a deeper understanding of my own disillusionment with politics - they find the school council too worthy for words. There's a bit too much encouragement of the view that woolly thinking will save the world for my liking.

I agree with martianbishop and custardo that the school council interviewing teachers is wrong. I don't think ours does that.

Sari - I love the chocolate idea! Sadly my children's school has just got Healthy Schools accreditation so bang go my chances...

Yep my ds helped set it up at his old school
There were 2 yr ^ reps one girl and one boy
And one rep from the other year groups, it was quite fun doing the elections etc, the kids really got into it.
DS got voted in adn he and his co yr 6 rep, set up an anti bullying idea called a buddy system, each person in each class could take a turn to be a buddy to anyone who felt lonely or insecure or hurt or upset.
It worked really well and no bullying now exists, ds is in yr 7 now, but the old sysytem has stayed in place!

My dds' infant school has one. They have two reps from every class (Reception to Yr 2). I guess the extent of their involvement is somewhat limited by their age, but I do think it's good for the children to feel that their voices are heard and to understand the principle of one or two people being elected by the others to represent their views. They have proper hustings and elections for the council members.

Presumably, Custy, your dd was not single-handedly choosing the new drama teacher. If so, I'd be a bit worried. But I do think that there's no harm, once again, in letting children have a say (which may or may not then influence the final decision). I know it's not quite the same thing (because the people I teach are adults) but we've had quite a few new posts in my department recently (a university Modern Languages department). The interviews are always in two parts. The formal part in the afternoon and either a mock lecture or a discussion of a lecture course that the candidate would introduce if appointed in the morning. Students are always invited to attend the morning session and their comments are listened to. Their comments wouldn't necessarily determine the final decision (which is often based on factors to which the students simply are not party), but they would be taken into account (e.g. if they found someone's mock lecture totally incomprehensible). I don't see this as being a bad thing, and I presume that it was something like this that was going on with Custy's dd....

i asked my daughter about this becuase i think its pants - so i really tried to get info, she seems to think that her being there ( along with other children not from same class - handpicked) affected the decision making process.

so if it didn't ( which is fkin well shouldnt) then there is a lack of communication.

she said " the dude was the best mum cos he made us laugh. The woman was Horiible, she had rules and told us not to talk over her she was really grumpy and didn't make a good impression"

i swear thats what she said.

i vote for teacher number 2.

It is interesting, we give the kids assessment forms, to assess our teaching. Most of them tend to do it quite well. I was assessed as being always or usualy fair by all but two of the kids in year 9. They said I was never fair. The forms are not named, but I'd bet my boots these were the two boys who I have to hound to do any work!

Also interesting that all of the class thought I set too much homework. In actual fact I set half the amount of written homework I am supposed to do! Kids are notcompetent to make 'adult' judgements. And why should they? They are kids and we forget this at their loss

martianbishop, I bet if you'd asked the parents they would all have said you set far too little homework (I've noticed this on lots of OFSTED reports lately).

custardo - I'd love to know who got the job.

Part of the selection process for the head teacher at my children's primary school was taking an assembly on bullying. Each candidate got a different set of pupils so the children weren't overwhelmed with assemblies. That strikes me as a reasonable test of how well the candidates could do the job. Being interviewed by the school council might be seen in the same light - do we know whether the candidates were assessed on whether they impressed the children or on how well they handled the meeting? The latter would seem reasonable.

My children's classes quite often elect the troublemakers who then are given something constructive to do with their energies - surely a good thing?

LOL @ dude Custy. Should have said that I work in a department where the students are predominantly female. Last lot of interviews we had one male candidate who was distinctly sexier than your average lecturer... Guess who the students voted for?

Your dd's experience bears out what I said though. The chidren need to think that their views are taken into account.

Must confess though that my experience is all with under 5s and over 18s, so the teenage psyche is (for the time being) a closed book to me. Will probably eat my words in 10 years time when my dds are that age.