1989: Vic Taylor: Student Teacher: INSET Report
Kilquhanity
The following is part of a student's report on an INSET (In-service Education and Training) visit to Kilquhanity House School by Vic Taylor in June 1989.
Transcript
. . . Council Meeting: A small part of the agenda is requested by staff, as a result of the staff meeting of the previous day – e.g. one item discussed at the staff meeting was better use of Optional Classes by the kids, and a recommendation was put to the Council Meeting.
The rest of the agenda is partly statutory e.g. Kindergarten Points and day-to-day/week-by-week matters (one item that comes up each week is the ‘mug count’, and what to do with any breakages – who’ll pay, how was it broken, can the handle be ground down to make it safe to handle if it’s just the handle . . )
The rest of the agenda is partly from pupil requests (e.g. a broken window – who did it?, who’ll pay?) Two very interesting – and I found, very moving things about the Council Meeting struck me:
First, people were not interested so much in punishment or reimbursement of cost for such misdeeds as the breaking of a window, but in how it happened (who was with you? are they partly to blame? Can anyone shed any further light on what happened and how we are to follow this up?), and what the ‘Undertaking’ would be about it.
A record is kept of what people ‘undertake’ to do – in the case of some ‘middle-landers’ who wanted a late bedtime, people kept nagging away very positively at getting the group to complete the ‘undertaking’ they’d already given to behave more public-spiritedly at bedtime, rather than just lose their supper, or have some similar sanction imposed.
Second, the meeting was run by a kid, who calmly impressed her authority on the Council by stopping her own conversation at the appointed time and waiting for the chat to subside, which it rapidly did. She repeated the wording and any ‘undertaking’ or proposal so that not only her ‘scribe’, but also the whole room, heard what was said.
She corrected people’s behaviour on the few occasions it was necessary, without redress to comments about character – this included politely but firmly telling staff not to talk (it’s easy if the staff are all known and addressed by forenames), moving one lad to a different place (no quibble), and getting another to sit with his head up so he could be seen to be taking part in the Council (no reference to his giggling and passing comments while his head was down).
She changed places with the scribe so that she could own up to a misdemeanour, apologise to the aggrieved party and explain how she had come to offend. She received the benefits of quite a grilling post-mortem by a group of staff and kids, and herself persuaded this group that the agreed rotation system for chairpersoning should be suspended so that she could improve on her performance next week.
She had had difficulties but was able to cope because of the open discussion and the acceptance of a system by all and evolved by the whole school over the years for running business. Her difficulties were minimal compared to what I would expect from 4th-Years I know.
A similar "Council Meeting" held a quarter of a century earlier (1964)
Although John and possibly a couple of other teachers appear to be have been presnt, I can't tell who was "running" this meeting. Whoever that may have been, it wasn't a girl as none seem to have been present. The absence of female teachers is also interesting.
