Student Voice

There are many wonderful leadership opportunities for students at Balaklava Primary School. Students have been learning about leadership over their primary years and this is their chance to lead the school in a confident and positive manner.

School Captains

These 4 positions are open to our Year 6 students – 4 school captains. The successful students will be called upon for a variety of roles such as;

  • Welcoming guests to the school
  • Take on the executive roles in SRC
  • Making speeches at school functions
  • Attending the ANZAC dawn ceremony and community events as required
  • Running assemblies
  • Support staff with different events throughout the year, eg. Selling drinks at functions out of hours, organise activities during break times, setting up / packing up school events eg. swimming carnival, end of year concert etc.
  • Public speaking eg. thanking performers, school visitors.
  • Participate in and complete school tasks eg. weekly work finished, Premiers Reading Challenge, Premiers Be Active Challenge, school crossing duty where possible, swimming carnival, sports day etc.

Students will need to complete a written application. Short listed applicants will then be interviewed by a panel, which will include two staff members and students.

Applications need to be to Mrs Cleary by 9:00am the Monday of Week 3.

House Captains – Sporting team

House captains are responsible for their house teams and assist in the organisation of the swimming carnival and sports day. Leaders must be present/participate at these events. The year 3-6 students in each house team will vote for 2 captains and 2 vice-captains. Captains are year 6 students only. Vice – captains can be year 5 or 6 students.

Applications will be presented as a speech for voting to occur in each of the house teams. All year 6’s will be asked to write and deliver a speech as a part of our oral language program. All students are expected to present a speech, however students may choose not to stand for election and some may present to class teachers not the house teams. 2 Captains will be elected from each house team and must be year 6 students. 2 Vice captains will be elected from each house team and can be year 5 or 6 students. House meetings will occur in week 3, speeches need to be ready to present by 9am Monday of Week 3. Students who are standing to be house team leaders are required to nominate by writing their names on the sheet in each classroom by 9am Monday week 3.

Student Representative Council (SRC)

This year for student voice we will be running our SRC (Student Representative Council). The School Captains will automatically be included in the executive roles of SRC. In addition the year 5/6 classes will elect 2 SRC representative. One representative will be selected from each class in semester 1 and semester 2.

Music Captains

Students are required to provide Sue-Ann with a written application by Monday Week 3 by 9am. Sue-Ann will consider applications as per the set criteria (for the Music Captain and the Instrumental Captain) as discussed during Week 1. These positions are optional.

School Assemblies

Assemblies are held at school once per fortnight and run by students. The Assemblies are held every odd week during the school term on a Friday at 2:30pm. They are aimed at fostering a cohesive school community, providing a forum for the Principal, staff and student committees to foster a positive school culture and promote the school values. Students are also recognised for their learning successes through the presentation of individual certificates.

The Music Curriculum is celebrated when individual or small groups of students present aspects of their learning.

Application writing for leadership positions

We are expecting all students to participate in the application process as part of our curriculum work. Students are expected to provide a copy of their house captain and school captain application to their class teacher for assessment. It is the responsibility of the student to get a second copy of the school captain application to Mrs Cleary by Monday of week 3, 9am if they are applying for the school captain position. All year 6s (even if they are not standing for a position) will be required to have a second copy of their house team speech ready to present at their house meetings in week 3. This is part of our oral presentation curriculum work for the year.

The application for a school captain position is to be a maximum of one page in length. The house captain speech will have a maximum time limit of 1 minute.

The areas the application needs to address are as follows:

  • Communication skills
  • Attitude to tasks
  • Treatment of others (respect)
  • Organisational skills and responsibility
  • Having fun

During the first two weeks we will be focussing on planning and writing applications at school. We will expect students to continue working on this at home to ensure applications are completed by the due date. Any individual will only be eligible to attain two leadership positions. We would suggest you apply for as many positions as you wish and if you are lucky enough to win more than two positions you will need to choose which positions you would like to keep. We will have a list of other applicants for positions and the next in line will get any vacant position.

Expectations of school leaders

  • Put effort into all curriculum areas
  • Keep up to date with expected work
  • Complete extra-curricular activities offered
  • Engage in school community services eg. Traffic monitor crossing, lunch play activities.
  • Displays a positive, responsible and reliable attitude towards school at all times
  • Participates in school events, eg. especially House Team Leaders will participate in Sports Day and Swimming Carnival events and organisation.
  • Assist with the set up and pack up of school events
  • Assist in organising and running lunch time events

It is expected that our student leaders are positive role models. If any of these expectations are not met the positions may be open to review.