Originally posted by sugaryblue
Are you serious?? Oh wow, the stuff that you did, we have like Canteen volunteers, yearbook committee and formal committee and teachers entered the marks and comments themselves. and we have other executives specifically for the SRC.
...
oh wow, you must KNOW and LEARN a lot about your school! and HOW did you compromise that with your 14units?
(Sorry, I just went to sleep for two hours and didn't read your post until now, two hours later).
Yep, I'm serious. Well we have Canteen volunteers (parents) too, but they just serve the students (we also have Prefects to serve juniors, but Prefects who are seniors, cannot serve seniors because of the "disappearing money" problem
). But you do find that seniors serve other seniors too, only a certain few though (because they are trusted, they don't rort the canteen, etc). Also, we've got cash registers in the canteen now (so everything gets recorded, tallied and what not). One prefect got caught stealing money and he had to be taken off the Cantee List/duty Roster by me (well, I was instructed/spoken to about it). So that made my life a little bit more complicated, re-doing the rosters, sorting the lists ALL over again, finding replacements who are willing to work on a particular day, during recess or lunch, who are not busy doing other things (because we do have other prefect duties and they have their own list), managed by me.
As for the Yearbook, it was pretty slack this year. Initially we had about 15 students sign up (well, the teacher was "good looking" and feminine, and we attended an all-male school, you can work that one out
). But towards the end, all of the reports and text were handed in on CDs and disks, some of them were corrupt and didn't work, which means I had to re-type them (they handed in crap disks so it wasn't my fault that they couldn't be read on a PC and Mac). By the time we were approaching STUVAC and the "final days of Year 12" - we hadn't even started! The formal was in approx. 3-4 weeks and I *really* did not want to come into school to start/finish during the holidays, during STUVAC and before the first english exam paper! So a few days before we finished Year 12 I got together with Miss and we started doing our planning, layouts, number of pages, templates, working out where to put things, how we're going to store things, the system (Macintosh G4) and so on. So right up until we graduated on the thursday or friday night, I stayed back at school until 5.45pm, ran home (I live about 15 mins away) and took a quick shower, got changed and ran back to school to do more Yearbook work (it was mostly typing, editing work, and the copying/pasting job, inserting pictures, finding things to slot in, etc) and before I knew it, I had to be at church for our graduation ceremony/mass - which meant I had to run to the other corner of the block (school is on 1 corner, on the oppposite corner we have the local Parish Church).
But the marks and teachers comments, *some* would rather do it themselves, like you know I wouldn't be able to write what I would see on my OWN report, or be able to see who got what marks in the trial, etc *for Year 12* (since I am in Year 12, I'm not allowed to look at what gets reported to other Year 12 students - my peers, teachers comments about their performance, their opinions of Year 12 kids, which kids they don't like/hate, LOL... it's because I'm in Year 12, writing about Year 12 that causes trouble/problems). About the SRC, it's just 2 representatives from Years 7 to 11, (we also have 2 from Year 12), but the SRC is headed by the Student Executive (the top 5). Everything is really run by two members: myself the Admin Prefect and my friend who is the Vice Captain (he starts proceedings, chairs the meetings and has "control"). I just sit by his side, mention things, take the minutes, write things down and generally "oversee" proceedings. We (the Executive) also helped out with Assemblies, but "not in detail or depth" - each morning we would say the morning Prayers (school prayer) over the P.A. system - which sucks because on a cold morning or if I didn't get enough sleep, I sound really bad, especially when over 1000 people are hearing your crappy voice in each room/building, LOL!
At assemblies, we just sit at the very front/top of the stage and 'be role models/leaders' - we say the prayers there too, because that's what we do... just to start off the assembly, we lead in Prayer, saying one paragraph each and stuff (in front of the whole school). You get recognised and kids come up to you and know who you are, etc. which is nice.
I also help out with uniform duties because really *no one else wants to do it* - because I don't live "too far" away from school, I don't mind if I'm 10-20 minutes late. We just stay back until about 3.30 to 3.40pm, making sure everyone who leaves the school gates has their tie on, shirt tucked in, collar fixed, general Uniform stuff (making sure it's all there, if not then you record their names in the book and ask them, pull them aside, etc). Heheh it was pretty fun! The Senior Prefect at my school did most of the things you did, I guess. I just post the rosters, he looks at the list for a given day, and he goes around and is basically "in charge" of the Prefects - Senior Prefect. He is the one who has to look for prefects and makes sure people show up to their jobs/rostered task, uniform checks, etc.
Well, my position is special, but it's a "shared" kind of special - between
all members of the Executive. We (the Executive) have a good relationship with the teachers and between the 5 of us, we get along well, no quarrels or problems with any other member (although there had been a bit of tension between the Captain and myself, a long time ago hehe). Yep, I got to type in teachers remarks and comments - but they were all the same really. The system worked on "what the student scored" in their report - because you can't really say nice things, if he only got 40% (for example). So the teachers just look at the monitor, which has the student's school photo/portrait just to remind them of who the kid is (ehehhe sometimes they don't know, because the kid is too quiet or doesnt talk) - but immediately, the "trouble makers" of the class are identified. I just did years 7-9 really, nothing "senior" because that would conflict with my interests hehehe. So basically I clicked all the grades (they are automatic drop down menus) and the teacher just says "Yep, put Good for all of this, I really like this kid - Excellent, hmm he didn't really do well here, make it Improvement Needed" or something.
When I talk about the Executive/Staff Meetings - it revolves around the "high level" (as I call it) Executive Members of Staff. These include: Principal, Assistant (deputy) principals, curriculum coordinator, Religious Education Coordinator (REC), Special Operations Coordinator and that's pretty much it (I hope I haven't left anyone out), but we did have other members of staff join the Executive meetings. The Student Executive are entrusted with lots of things, because what gets said, the principal makes sure doesn't get said again, like if it's really important or a special announcement, it would be the unspoken rule of "don't tell all the other kids or your friends, before the Principal officially talks about it at an assembly" (hehe, which means: don't spoil it and "leak" information to all the students before the Principal even gets a chance to tell the school/other staff members).
Yep, I know and learn a lot about the school, how it works, who does what, which teachers don't like which teachers, who to avoid (because they might just keep you there and talk, and talk, and talk to you for ages, LOL). But as you have noted, handling 14U with the role of a Student Exec. member was really hard, but not impossible. What does that mean for my schooling/education? we'll see next week! HSC marks/UAI release
I think that it did have a
minor role in influencing my marks, I mean... I'm not losing 50% of my marks in every subject I do, just because I help out whenever I can, or am asked to do other things that "normal" students would not do. I manage
- I guess my only quarrel would be: waking up early in the morning sometimes, to attend Staff/Exec. Meetings, which begin at about 7.30am or 8am, and finishes when the bell rings at 8.45am, so they're not really long.. we do go overtime but it's not my fault, LOL - I don't really say much, unless I have comments about computers or technology, if teachers ask for "IT" stuff then I guess I answer and have my two cents worth on the issue, but I'm the "sit there, shut up" type hehehe
- getting up early for 4U English would be annoying too, because I would have to find a balance between my jobs at school, with my own studies
and my commmitment to 4U lessons (because I have no study periods, I have to stay back afterschool until around 4.30pm to 5pm to talk about my Extension 2 Major Work, whereas other kids who do 4U get to talk about their works during their free study periods or whenever they can, most 4U students are not prefects, but about 2-3 who do Extension 2 are prefects). So that is my only beef - waking up early, going to Extension 2 meetings (that begin at 8am to when the bell rings), and having to stay back afterschool to do more Extension-2 work and discussions with my teacher (same teacher as Extension 1 Eng, and also the Curriculum coordinator,
and the main teacher who runs the SRC, so I guess I have a really good relationship with him).
*shuts up again*
Edit
Fixed up one typo, re-read my post.