Junior School democracy
- Mr O'Reilly on Junior School democracy
As the news becomes more and more dominated by the upcoming EU in or out referendum, we can be at risk of becoming disillusioned by a political process which seemingly has very little to do with our everyday lives. This can lead to a disengagement from the political process, which I’m sure many of us can sympathise with.
But, compare this to our younger selves, perhaps as students, and we are likely to have been engaged at some point or another and active in school or university politics, with an acute sense of fairness, and a readiness to fight for what we believe in. At university I was a student representative myself at the Faculty of Education – not 'fighting' for students but ensuring the faculty listened to the student body, and that changes were made democratically.
Similarly, at our Junior School, we have a student-led School Council which represents the views of all our girls. It's encouraging and exciting to see the enthusiasm of the girls on this council, and their clear understanding of how democracy should work. I always enjoy reading the minutes from the meetings, considering what we are able to do as a school in response and, in turn, informing the girls in assembly that we have listened to their requests, and of our plans to carry out their changes and fulfil their ideas.
As a school that believes strongly in nurturing the pupil as a whole, it is important that we equip our girls to consider decisions such as this and encourage them to form information-based opinions of their own.
After the half term break we will be discussing the EU referendum with some of the girls, and providing them with unbiased information about the debate. We will also be holding our own EU referendum debate with the Year 5 and Year 6 pupils, and I look forward to hearing the girls' views and encouraging them in their active engagement in the democratic process.
Earlier this week, First News hosted a similar event – with workshops and a mock referendum with 100 children from 20 schools across the country – at which the Remain campaign saw success as the children voted to stay in the EU. We will let you know in due course the result from the St Mary’s Junior School, Cambridge referendum on the EU!
The girls in Reception talk a lot about how important it is to share things with one another so that everybody has a chance to use the shared equipment. When the girls were working on their designs for Eco-week they made sure to share books and took turns on websites, so that everybody could look at a picture of the sea creature they had chosen. We also shared all the recycled materials when making the creatures.
Julia and Saffron are the two elected school councillors for Year 1. Pictured, the girls are reporting back to the class after the School Council meeting.
Year 2 pupils enjoy offering their ideas to improve their school. The School Council representatives have been very organised and always remind Mrs Owens what needs to be discussed. The girls all have opinions on what we should eat and what new clubs would be fun to go to. All ideas are listened to and real changes are often made as result – within reason!
Year 3 pupils have been reading a class text. The girls discuss new words, what is happening and the characters, and share their views with each other, listening really well to everyone's opinion. Everyone has a turn to read, it's very democratic!