Prefect – ‘Just Perfect’
Well JM has just let me know that the CEO at HHS has decided that Prefects will no longer be known as Prefects and the Head Boy and Girl names are to change….Here we go again, springs to mind.
Almost every school in the UK offers students the opportunity to be a prefect, in a system that has been around for hundreds of years. So why change?
Everybody knows what a Prefect is, every school has them, every student has grown up with them.
You either wanted to be one so you had the perks involved and to please your parents, or you didn’t want to be one of those, not because it was/is uncool, but more likely because there was no way you were going to be chosen to be one in any case.
As you would expect, I was, Mr Smart Arse and overall clever sod, who played the system and therefore a Prefect, House Captain who was really disappointed that I wasn’t also Head Boy, but ‘them’s the breaks’ to quote BJ.
To be honest, I used to like leaning against the radiators in many of the school entrances keeping the riff raff out of school, while watching everyone else freezing their butt off outside during break. The ability to put your feet up in The Prefects Room also had its distinct advantages……
So, I am rather at a loss as to why the CEO, (or shouldn’t that be Head Master, ….but that’s another topic) wants the change.
Apparently, Prefects are to be called Senior Student Leader’s (SSL), while the Head Boy and Head Girl are to be known as Head Student Leader (HSL)….and there was me thinking HSL made chairs for old people….and there will also be Deputy Student Leaders (DSL).
Can’t quite get my head around the proposed change which on the face of it, just looks like another example of the thin end of the wedge. An effort to be seen to be more inclusive, where there could be a student who evidently could be having an identity crisis and may not want to be either a boy or a girl, another apparent example of trying too hard to be politically correct.
Surely, he will re-consider, but knowing how intransigent people can be, I won’t be holding my breath.
In my mind, why change something that has been around for so long and also worked so well.
What’s wrong with being a Prefect, surely, it’s just Perfect….
Far be it for me to disagree with this point, but it does somewhat make me think about some other Engish/ British systems that came to pass ( most would say for the better) that were advantageous to the few, oppressive to many, around for hundreds of years and definitely the thin end of the wedge when removed.
Obviously slavery is the first that springs to mind, and when I say thin of the wedge, I mean it started with abolition and eventually reached equal rights.
I guess I’m just suggesting that because we grew up with a system that we never questioned and suited us, it’s not always the right one for everyone and for the future???