Anna’s Blog – Head Girl

It seems fairly shocking, but within two weeks, the new Year 12 Prefects will have been chosen and they’ll be starting their ‘shadowing’ of us after half term. Those of us who are currently Prefects will be sad to go – although we do still have 8 weeks left that we’re determined to make the most of.

The new Prefect structure will look slightly different to the old one. For a start, it’s going to be far bigger. Now, directly below the 10-strong Head Girl Team will be 50 or so Senior Prefects who have roles ranging from Head of House or Head of Year to Form Prefect or a specialist Prefect in a particular subject like Music. Making up the third tier are the Prefects, who belong to a particular Team led by a Senior Prefect: examples may be the Student Voice Team or the Charity Team. As with any new system it may take time to adjust, but it looks like it will work really well because this way, everyone who wants to get involved in giving something to the school in year 12/13 can do so – hopefully, lots more will get done! Many hands make light work…

Something new and useful that we’ve done just recently are the maintenance forms, coming soon to a classroom near you! Basically, the usual process for students to report problems like jammed toilet doors, broken radiators etc. may have been slightly haphazard – you had to report it to your Form Teacher, or take it to School Forum – and you may have felt like it got lost. Now, all you need to do is take a form, fill it in, and drop it straight off at the Finance Office. Much easier for you; much easier for the school to know what needs fixing… and as a result, hopefully things will get fixed more quickly.

Another exciting development is the ‘What’s On Board’. School Forum have used some of their £1000 annual Budget to fund a big outdoor notice board which will be a central spot to find out everything that’s going on in the week. With a space for every day, clubs, cake sales, activities and all sorts will be put up there so you can at a glance see what’s important this week. Should be arriving soon, so keep your eye out for it around school.

Lastly, I expect everyone knows by now about the Citizen of the Term award… Set up last term, to recognise people who are good citizens (either by being consistently generous and kind, or by having done a particularly outstanding act of kindness), the award was presented in assemblies over the last two weeks. There was a wonderful response to the call to find good people, with 60 people nominated (staff and students). The shortlist of 5 was given – anonymously – to School Forum in December, who voted for the winner. The shortlisted people were Elizabeth Godfrey-Gush, Miranda LeGood, Harriet Grantham, Mr Maynard and Emily North, with the final award going to Emily for her volunteering with Sine Nomine (a volunteer group in school), Amnesty Interntaional, Bell Lane Primary School, teaching PSHE lessons and generally being a very helpful, generous and kind person!

Nominations for this term’s Citizen of the Term will get under way soon – the deadline will be 5th March. Nominate by emailing i03stann@challonershigh.com or by putting a form in the envelope on the Citizen of the Term board.