Only girls applying for head prefect roles/ is it just us?

[Cathpot]

Just had the end of year assembly where the head boy/ girl and senior prefects were revealed. 11-16 school so these are our year 10, soon to be Yr 11. Head boy/ head girl and then 4 senior prefects- all girls. 6 kids up at the front and only one boy.
The head boy is a lovely human- bouncy and personable- out of choice he will sit on a table with girls- so I think not popular with boys particularly, so not really a choice boys in his year are invested in . I can think of several boys who would have made excellent senior prefects but they have to apply for the role in writing and then interview. I presume they didn’t apply- the selection process is done by SLT without wider staff input (an issue in itself). This comes on the heel of trying and failing to get bright capable boys to take part in a STEM team to compete against other schools and sending a team of all girls in the end. This is a definite shift in the last 2 or 3 years. Just wondered if it’s just our school and if other schools appoint these roles on a 50/50 split?

I recently retired from a secondary in Victoria. No prefects here, post holders for committees/groups - mostly girls. For years there was a girl and boy captain, but then the quality issue came up so one year it was two girls. Yes, a real shift to disengagement by boys, and girls carrying the weight in the school.

I'd be surprised if this was only an Aussie issue.

All who apply do a presentation to a staff meeting, and staff vote.

I'm going to raise it when we go back- it doesn’t do us any favours in terms of behaviour to have boys opt out of public responsibility and / or demonstrating pride in the school. It not that we don’t have boys that would fit the bill, it’s that they are stepping up.

AREN'T stepping up

At my dds' secondary, they have 4 student leaders. 3 girls and 1 boy. They are 6th formers though. I was also surprised by the new titles!

We had over 25 applications for Head B/G, marginally more girls but lots of boys too.

Highest number of applications we've had in years!

@OwlBabiesAreCute is that 6th form or year 11? It’s not my area of responsibility but I’m a year 11 tutor and I teach the boys I would have expected to apply and I just want to put my oar in a bit. I need to get my facts straight first about who applied but if the boys aren’t applying that’s something we can start pushing for this years Year 10. I do realise that we could easily staff the entire student prefect body with capable hard working girls but it feels wrong to let this happen without finding out why the boys are opting out. It might be a year group thing- but last year was the same, although the year before had a better split.

@Cathpot ours is Sixth Form, I know yours are slightly younger. We do have a good mix though especially for next year's group.

Ours are sixth formers but we head students rather than head boys/girls
I think we have slightly more girls than boys apply but the balance is pretty good