Prefectorial system

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Irene+
Posts: 81
Joined: Wed Jan 07, 2009 2:19 pm
Location: London, Ealing

Prefect system

Post by Irene+ »

What do you think about prefects and "prefect system" in GS?
It seems to me that they have too much power?
mattsurf
Posts: 230
Joined: Mon Apr 28, 2008 11:44 am

Post by mattsurf »

As a former GS prefect I cannot agree. I was a prefect at my prep school at the age of 12, and then a prefect at GS at 17. Being a prefect involved alot of addition work - supervising children at lunch times and after school, getting involved with helping at many school social and sporting events. However, it was a great honour to a prefect.

I was never aware of Prefects abusing their positions as it was made clear that the school took a very dim view of this.

In many respects, the Prefects are one of the most important public faces of the school. In fact I can see many benefits of the Prefect system:

It gives some students responsibility in a very controlled environment - after all many of these students will have responsible jobs in a few years time

It relieves staff to focus more on teaching rather than fairly mundane supervisory duties

It is a great PR exercise for a school to showcase its best students

It is a reward for the best students
Milla
Posts: 2556
Joined: Mon Nov 24, 2008 2:25 pm

Post by Milla »

I'm not yet aware of the power exercised.
I do know that at a local indie the head boy (and presumably head girl) get their fees free because they are such ambassadors for the school and their role is so important - but it brings its own problems as the child (still a child in my book if at school) is then at odds with their peers - meant to report bad behaviour and so on.
At my school, it was great, we were all prefects in the 6th form, with a few light responsibilities which made us feel vaguely grown up and important. The idea being that on our CV it looked good. No one knew that everyone got it and it was a means of giving everyone a little something to say about themselves from the off. There was an inner core who busied around but I don't remember anyone taking much notice of them. It was fun having some contact with the younger classes, esp for such as me who were new to the school having only entered in the 6th form.
Irene+
Posts: 81
Joined: Wed Jan 07, 2009 2:19 pm
Location: London, Ealing

Post by Irene+ »

Helping with social and sport events, monitoring and supervising children at lunch times, responsibility - it's all great, but...do prefects have a right to hand out detentions?
zee
Posts: 360
Joined: Thu Mar 05, 2009 10:43 am

Post by zee »

It seems like a rather strange question to me. It presumably varies greatly between grammar schools, let alone between comprehensives, secondary moderns and indies.

However, when you get on to discussing specific powers, such as handing out detentions, then it's possible to debate.

As a pupil and now parent, I've enountered plenty of prefects, but not had problems with any. However, their "powers" were only praise, telling off, referring to a teach, speaking at speech day etc, all of which were fine. Had they been handing out detentions, I'd have more doubts.
Tolstoy
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Joined: Wed Aug 13, 2008 5:25 pm

Post by Tolstoy »

Like Milla's school we were all prefects once we hit 6th form.

I prefer it that way. I am very dubious about singling out certain children for the role as on the whole most students who opt to stay on are pretty sensible.

Mind you one or two always took the role very seriously and we learned to avoid them. They couldn't hand out detentions but they could report us and we would get into trouble.
katel
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Joined: Thu Jan 11, 2007 11:30 pm

Post by katel »

Irene - have you just been given a detention by a prefect at your school?
KB
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Joined: Tue Mar 04, 2008 3:28 pm

Post by KB »

At my children's school senior prefects (in yr 13) can hand out lunch time detentions under certain conditions but it is closely monitored by staff & they have to supervise the detention sessions themselves so hardly likely to abuse authority :)

The senior pupils have alot of responsibility & are expected to maintain even higher personal standards of behaviour, appearance etc than the already high level expected of 6th formers.

Yes it does single them out from other pupils, but as role models - its something else to aspire to - that doesn't require academic or sporting excellence.

Can see in theory the 'power' could be mis-used but the school see it as an opportunity for those who are likely to be the 'managers' of tomorrow to learn how to handle authority & responsibilty for the good of the whole not just themselves!
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