leadership opportunities
At St. Edward’s there are a range of leadership opportunities available to pupils in KS3 along with membership of the Student Council available to all years. Pupils can be deputy head girl / boy, librarians, sports leaders, vice and house captains, prefects, peer mentors and reading buddies.
Pupils help to encourage and motivate others in the school and are inspiration to pupils in lower years, who will one day fill the same roles.
To be a leader, pupils must show responsible and kind behaviour, they must be confident and helpful and they must be able to use initiative to fulfil their role effectively.
Head Boy & Girl and prefects
The Head Boy and Girl and their deputies, chosen from Year 8 students, are responsible for representing the school and pupil body at public events, open evenings and charity events. They also play a key part in chairing the student council. They lead our team of Year 8 prefects who support the school with particular duties, for example school tours, meeting visitors and charity events.
student council
The School Council is elected in September. Each form group elects one boy and one girl to represent them. Pupils can nominate themselves as candidates but the nomination must be approved first by the form tutor.
Pupils who are standing are asked to make a short presentation to the class outlining why they would be a good candidate. Voting is by secret ballot. In the event of a tie, the form tutor has the casting vote.
The School Council meets each half-term during a nominated lesson. They may also meet on other occasions to discuss specific items and form parts of working groups alongside teachers, parents or governors. Training for the Council is arranged during term 1.
Council members are also used as part of the selection process for staff joining the school and to help us gather pupil opinion. They are an important group and membership of Council should be seen as prestigious and demanding.
house captains
House Captains and Vice Captains are elected at the start of each year for the four houses: Alban, Bede, Columba and Dunstan.
Pupils in year 7 and 8 stand in elections and present a speech explaining how they will support and lead their houses in the year. Ballot stations are put up in school and pupils use voting slips to select their house candidates. This runs in parallel with the government and democracy citizenship week themes in school.