With Prep and Senior Student Councils enjoying their twice yearly briefing meetings with the Headmaster, we reflect on the impact of pupil power on the way Harrodian does things
The members of Harrodian’s Senior Student Council recently enjoyed the first of their twice-yearly get togethers with Mr Hooke. The Headmaster briefed them on issues big and small that currently preoccupy the Harrodian Senior Management Team.
Mr Hooke updated them on the latest planning developments on our long-wished for sports hall while Senior School Council Co-Ordinator, Ms Oldacre, reported back on last term’s school lunch survey. This report examined which lunch preferences were most popular with a view to honing and tweaking the weekly menu and minimizing food wastage. The results have been passed on to school management and Ms Oldacre reported that pupils are already noticing the difference. ‘Pupils fed back to Council that their favourites such as chilli, bangers and mash and chicken are featuring more often on the menu,’ she says. ‘And they’re also pleased to see more vegetarian options are becoming available.’
A recent Student Council survey examined which lunch preferences were most popular with a view to honing and tweaking the weekly menu and minimizing food wastage
The Student Councils have been making a productive impact on the school since the Senior Council was introduced at Ms Oldacre’s suggestion in 2006, with a Prep equivalent following a few years later. The idea was to create a no-holds-barred forum managed and run by the Head Boy and Girl in which elected representatives would meet weekly to voice any concerns about policies and procedures at the school, and to float ‘blue sky’ concepts for improving things.
Competition for places on each council (through a year group election process) has always been hot and the two groups are always fertile sources of original thinking. Among the many subjects bubbling up on the Prep Council's agenda last term, for example, were the introduction of emergency sanitary products in girls' bathrooms, PSHE teaching and the provision of new cooking and gymnastic clubs and a ping pong table for breaktimes.
Past experience shows that Harrodian management is listening hard to all these suggestions. Proposals for change taken up by the school in the past five years, for example, have ranged all the way from the highly successful introduction of sandwich wraps at lunchtime, through changes to our detention system, to the formulation of a gender-neutral school dress code.
The Council reported that younger Seniors felt much more comfortable expressing their concerns about illegal substances candidly to a Sixth Form student than to a teacher and it made complete sense to take that idea on board
Ms Taryn Oldacre, Senior School Council Co-ordinator
The latest bright idea to be adopted in the Senior School – the introduction of small group discussions on problematic issues with Sixth Form Mentors – sprang out of last term’s PSHE lessons on drug awareness education. ‘The Council reported that younger Seniors felt much more comfortable expressing their concerns about illegal substances candidly to a Sixth Form student than to a teacher,’ says Ms Oldacre. 'And it made complete sense to take that idea on board.’
Fifteen years after their introduction, Mr Hooke remains a stalwart supporter of the Student Councils. ‘Harrodians are deeply committed to each other and the values of our school community and they’re full of good ideas,’ he says. ‘We’d be mad not to listen to what they have to say and value their opinions.’