School council in yr 4 - fairly pathetic post....

[nigelslaterfan]

ds has been in the school since nursery and has never been voted onto the school council by his class. Yesterday they voted again and he only got one vote. I feel irrationally gutted for him. I've never thought of him as unpopular particularly but this seems evidence of slight unpopularity. He's a confident outgoing child. A very new boy got a massive vote and ds was a bit crestfallen. dh and I obviously boosted him and talked about his strengths and said it didn't matter.
But maybe popularity isn't everything!

oh this takes me back- you have to accept that this is just a popularity vote- it makes no difference AT ALL whether your child would be brilliant or not. In my dds school, the same girl got voted into the school council 4 years in a row.
my dd was similarly gutted, saw it as completely unfair. By year 5, she flatly refused to take part and even refused to vote! good for her in my view. her view now (at 14) is that only 1 child out of 30 would get on the blardy thing and those that did in primary school haven't gone on to great things in senior school!!

never ever got the bit about reading out how many votes each child got..... isn;t that just mean?

Has he got friends, is he happy? The school council vote means nothing as long as he has a mate or two. Funnily enough, my DDs have always voted according to who they think is most likely to be able to present their views to the council, rather than who they like most. Perhaps the new boy is even more outgoing? Ran a better campaign? Or offered a better bribe?

x-posted with risingstar - slightly different experience! Don't think we've ever seen the same one voted in more than once, perhaps they're only allowed to stand once.

Agree about reading out the vote numbers.

thanks for your thoughts! Each child is only allowed to stand once so he knows he only has yrs 4,5 and 6 to have a chance!
Once we reassured him he didn't look that bothered any more, I think my only worry is that the single vote means he may be actively unpopular rather than slightly less popular than the most popular boys!
But many good points made here.

We only started a school council 4 years ago when DD1 was in Year 3. Children are only allowed to be voted in once in their time at the school so this ensures a more even spread!

It is a popularity contest really although DD1 now in Year 6 had never been voted in and is very popular and DD2 has just been voted in for her class and would not describe her as popular really!! Generally it is the popular girls who get voted in, the boys tend to be a bit more random!

i'm not sure you should worry about the single vote. in my dd's class most children get one vote, especially in the younger years since they all vote for themselves. when my dd wanted to be elected i tried explaining to her that she should do a deal with a couple of friends since 3 votes would probably get them elected and as there were 3 terms they would all get a turn. She didn't get the point though and they all continued voting for themselves as before.

I appreciate that your ds is upset but surely even if they run school council in every year (and many schools only do it in KS2) and assuming each class has 2 reps (again they might only have one) that is a maximum of 14 children who can make it onto school council, even without allowing children to stand more than once. So in an average state primary class more than hald the class are NEVER going to make it onto school council, regardless of how popular they are. It's not like he is going to be in a minority of one or two children. However, I agree that reading out the votes is a bit off - and unnecessary.

My son only got 1 vote!!! But he is now house captain (smile!).
No need to read out votes.

Yes, reading out the amount of votes you got isn't really necessary. I think they kept that part out of the equation at dc's school.

We have it here too. Dd2 went in for it with great enthusiasm; didn't get it, but was gracious in defeat etc.

Ds has done it before and enjoyed it.

I did feel for dd a bit tbh; well, protective is the word, I suppose. She is friendly at school but has never really understood the whole girly popularity contest that goes on.

She has more 'general' friendships rather than being involved in complicated close knit political groups. So I guess when it comes to voting for your best pal, she will dip under the radar.

It's their loss tbh, because I know how seriously she would take it if she had been chosen.

School though eh?...sometimes I think they're only looking for a 'type' and if you aren't that type then school, to their detriment, can overlook so many interesting people. But life and success doesn't begin and end there; not by a long shot.

I've comforted DS (yr4) on this one, by pointing out that you can only do it once, and it is much better to do it when you are older. Yes, he said, in year 6 it would be like being head boy. Trouble is, I doubt he'll ever get voted in. They seem to go for ones who'd try to do a good job, and I think any one can see that DS would get bored after a while.
What is a bit gutting, is that they changed schools at Yr3, and so far all the chosen ones have been children who already served a year (yes, they choose for the whole year!) in infants. The other thing that interests me is that I have only ONCE in 4 years heard of the school council actually doing anything: organising some fundraising actiivity.

I also think publishing the votes is outrageous, the only excuse I can see for it is that they wanted to show that it was "a free and fair election".
But surely they could have said:
Tall Goodlooking Boy - Most of the votes
Quite tallQ uite goodlooking boy - A few votes
Total Others - the balance
And the same for the girls, except it would be "blonde pretty" in place of "tall, goodlooking"
At least that was, the children could believe that some of their friends voted for them.

Well yes, that's another thread again, choccyp1g - what does the school council do? The election seems to be an end in itself here.

Slopes off to start one.

Ds1 was gutted not to be voted on in Y3 - they have a 'hands in the air' vote to get 2 boys and 2 girls, and then the election is between the candidates, with 1 boy and 1 girl being elected for the whole year. He was down to the last 2 but didn't get elected.

This year, he was again down to the last 2, but I think because the other boy wasn't particularly friendly with any of the girls, ds1 was elected! Which he was really chuffed about, but I said to him that it showed that if you didn't get something straight away, it was worth trying again for.

Our school council does a lot;

They have meetings, where class councillors bring the class likes/dislikes to discuss (these are decided in a prior class meeting, and written down in a book).
They welcome overseas visitors, often having lunch with them.
They do special assemblies.
They are involved in low level decisions of school policy.
They will 'represent' the school at functions.
Sometimes they will go on special trips to represent the school.

Over here, Lily