Tuesday, February 12, 2008 - Junior School Council Elections
 It happens about now every year. We have to elect two representatives from our grade to join the Junior School Council, one boy and one girl. This afternoon we held our elections. There were cheers, smiles, disappointment and a few held back tears. Always an emotional and excitable time.
The role of the Junior School Council representatives is to take part in fundraising for the school, deciding how certain funds should be spent (generally in regards to play equipment and yard furniture or gardens, etc), community work around the school neighbourhood, and other varied roles and events during the year. Weekly meetings, the odd lunchtime given up to carry out tasks and responsibilities, presenting information to the grade and in front of whole school assemblies... there's a lot to be done by these kids. It's a highly responsible job to get, and a lot of the kids would love to be on it. Unfortunately, there's always only room for a few, and much more room on the other side for the kids that miss out.
We opened the floor Monday morning for the kids to nominate themselves if they were interested in standing for election and about fifteen kids raised their hands. A decent discussion later and they'd highlighted the qualities they all thought a person fortunate enough to be given the privilege of representing our grade required. I told them then that they would have that day and today to watch the kids who had nominated themselves to see which of them displayed those qualities in the room to help them form their final decision for this afternoon's election.
That also gave the nominees Monday night to prepare a short speech to present to the grade as a last chance to sway their votes.
By the time we sat down on the floor after lunch today to decide our representatives, about six of the kids had elected to stand down, so the numbers were thinning. Of those still in the running, most had prepared a speech the night before, and I have to admit they were all great little speeches. I'm sure there was a decent amount of parent help hidden amongst the lines, but the kids delivered them effectively. Then came the vote.
 Two kids won the two positions, which meant about seven or eight missed out. Always the hardest part of the procedure as you know they all want the job. At least at grade three and four you can convince them that they have another two or three years to try again, or try for the School or House captain and vice captain positions when they get to grade five and six.
But that's two or three years down the track. That doesn't really help with the disappointment of today, eh?
Time's a great healer though, and I'm pretty sure most of them will get over it by tomorrow!
By which time we'll be beginning the process to choose the various House Captains instead.
It all starts again, eh?
Cheers.
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Post A Comment!
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Wednesday, February 13, 2008 - kids & elections |
| Posted by Anonymous |
That's a problem that I didn't have teaching in secondary school or college. The older kids either aren't as interested or they're more used to disappointment. But my younger son was his class representative (only 1 per class at his school) to the student council a few years back, and he really loved doing it even though they were'nt nearly as active as yours sounds to be.
And we don't have House Captains, so I don't know what those are or do, but hopefully, some of your disappointed school council hopefuls will win those spots.
~Cindy |
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Wednesday, February 13, 2008 - Untitled Comment |
| Posted by Mr V |
The House Captains are the kids who will organise their house sports teams for the House sports later in the term. Four coloured houses, much like the stuff in Harry Potter except schools have been doing this for years and years.
They compete against each other each year and the plaque has the previous House winners on it, added to each time.
Only the older kids can run for captains in this case though. |
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Thursday, February 14, 2008 - House sports |
| Posted by Anonymous |
Yet another tradition that we don't have in the USofA. In fact, we don't have anything similar in this area until the collegiate level when we have intramural sports - teams of students competing against other students at the same college/university. In huge cities, some of the large high schools might have intramural sports, but I'm not certain.
Sounds like fun for the kids. Lots more kids would get to participate than just the ones who compete against teams from other schools.
~Cindy |
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Thursday, February 14, 2008 - Untitled Comment |
| Posted by Mr V |
Struth, there's no picking teams. You're given a house colour when you arrive at the school and that's your team. Every kid who turns up on the day competes, and even if they're really ordinary they get a point for their efforts which goes to their team's total.
To find the overall team winner, the score is averaged out over the number of kids in that team who turned up that day. The highest average score wins.
I worded Green House up Wednesday night saying we've come first, second and first the last three years, and that second was a dodgy one too cos I KNOW a parent was going easy on her own team kids at one particular event. We lost by about .5 of a point that year.
So they're all fired up to smash the snot out of the other three houses.
Whether it happens or not is secondary, but they'll go out proud to wear the green! |
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This is an offspring of the School Spirit Webcomic site. Where that site features the comic strip itself, this site focuses more on the real life minor adventures of teaching in semi-rural Victoria.
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