Induction to Atlantic College: Student Council

Tweeted by UWC Great Britain : http://twitter.com/#!/U_W_C_GB/status/25606886444

Student Councils are a common feature in most modern schools. They are an almost certain part of the HK school scene and at South Island School were considered an important part. But what should be noted is that in almost all these instances the actual impact of student council is fairly small. In many local schools, Student Councils or Student Unions are merely joking for positions that look good on CVs. Even where they have an actual role, it is often devoid from school policy and unrelated to the teaching or policies of the administration. That was certainly the case many times during my studies at SIS. Although admittedly, as an international school, SIS was already significantly better in listening to the students.

Moving 7 hours away to the UK, I wondered whether the Student Council would function in much the same way. It had been billed as being more representative and better listened to. And this logically fit into the more student orientated and independent approach taken by Atlantic College. But given a deluge of changes since the last academic year, I was unsure how important the Atlantic College Student College actually was.

My house : Morganngy

That was part of the reason why I went to the student council meeting on the 30th of August 2010. It wasn’t a particularly spectacular meeting, there were approximately 16 members with 2 from each of the 7 houses (I’m in Morganngy). But what surprised me were the seriousness of the discussions. From internet hours to food, induction and carol units, the issues discussed were issues that truly affected the student population day in, day out. And contrary to other times, there were no mundane issues being discussed.

Student Council Forum

From Mr. J Wray,

Message to all students from the Chair of the Student Council
Dear All,

The Student Council Forum is an avenue for student voice within the school. Rather than only feeding back to your year representatives and the Student Council, you can post on the forum and have a direct input on decisions that affect you and your experience at school. The forum is a method of increasing student voice in the school by fostering more communication and collaboration within the student body.
It is split in to specific sections for the Whole School, Senior School, Middle School and Year 7. Post your own topics or discuss existing topics that relate to positive aspects of your school life, things you wish to improve or just general discussion. You should give reasons for your opinions.
The forum can be found at http://web.sis.edu.hk by clicking on the footprint icon.

To use the forum, you must log in with your school e-mail username (e.g. 11doej1). Your password will be your birthdate in the form DDMMYY (e.g. 120697) unless the first digit of the password is 0 in which case it becomes 60697 for 6th June 1997.

This means that all posts in the forum are made in your name. By using the forum, you are agreeing to use the forum in a useful and responsible way and that your comments are mature and disciplined.

This means that:
• Messages should not be malicious or offend. No profanity should be used, and each post should be respectful towards other members of the school community.
• Personal disagreements are discouraged and should not be conducted through the forum
• Items discussed should pertain primarily to Student Voice and School issues

All forums are moderated by the Student Council and inappropriate use of the forum will be reported and followed up on.

Please make full use of the forum as it is an extremely useful tool to express and discuss your opinions!

Best Regards,

Aneri Shah
on behalf of
The Student Council

My personal summary of the forum as it is is this

“Say what you like but if we don’t like it, it will get removed and you will be held responsible”