Student Leadership

THANKYOU TO THE OUTGOING HEADBOY/HEADGIRL TEAM

JFS HEADBOY/HEADGIRL TEAM 2009

left to right: Danny Feuer, Efraim Carlebach, Julian Conway, Danielle Kaye, Sara Bloch and Daniella Doffman

Nurturing good student leaders is an important element to JFS's success as a school. Students are encouraged to develop the necessary skills to enable them to take responsibility for their school and to then contribute positively both to the school and wider community.

Student leaders at JFS consist of the Head Boy/Head Girl team, Student Officers and members of the Student Council. Together, particularly through the termly Student Council meetings, they work to improve the school and suggest solutions to various dilemmas.

The core student leaders are the Head Boy/Head Girl team, which is elected every January by staff and members of the Sixth Form. The team consists of a Head Boy and Head Girl and usually two Deputy Head Boys and two Deputy Head Girls. Their role includes helping to support and co-ordinate the Student Officers and chairing Student Council meetings. Each team also has a major project that they work on during their time in office, for example the current team is looking to revive the House system.

Student Officers, who are appointed at the end of Year 10, are responsible for supervising students at lunch times. They are put in 5 teams (Eretz, Mayim, Ruach, Esh and Chai) together with some Year 12 student officers and are led by Team Leaders from Year 12, each team being on duty one day a week. They receive special training and through their duties develop such skills as assertiveness, punctuality and responsibility. It is usually from this group of students that the Head Boy/Head Girl team will emerge.

The main forum through which students can influence the School is the Student Council. The Head Boy/Head Girl team and student officers all attend as well as elected representatives of each year group and senior members of staff. Students can raise issues and the Student Council will then discuss what can be done. For example recently the Council has been discussing how to raise its profile amongst the student body and ideas such as a newsletter and having a competition to design a Student Council logo were suggested.