29.10.02

Student Council Minutes 29.10.2002

Present: Basheer, Clausen-Thue, Coffer, Cordes, Espin, Fink, Furniss, Gifford, Granger, Jouzy, Marmot, Morante, Reizenstein, Thompson, Torrance, Viita, Zinkin

 Absent: Henniker, Vandervolk, O’Boyle

 Dojo

The window is now open. For a ‘trial period’ only. The smell is gone, and may it never return.

 John Colet Service

The draft document to be submitted on the subject of the John Colet Service will be revised. It was felt by some to be not entirely representative of the range of views, and worded too strongly. The document will be released after ratification next week.

 Notice Board

The Council has been given approval for a notice-board. The location is not yet confirmed, but will be up as soon as possible.

 Black & White

The Council discussed at length the management of Black and White. It was felt that as the students’ magazine, it should be supported by the Council. Some questioned the legitimacy of censorship, and some were strong advocates of free press or self-censorship; the majority, however, felt that some form of censorship was necessary and acceptable, since it is an official publication of the school, with a wide readership and certain responsibilities. As a student newspaper, it should be students who decide content, form, and style, with as little interference as possible from staff or censors.

But the Council found the administration of the censorship to be a problem. The number of censors has consistently risen, for no apparent reason, with deleterious consequences, and it was felt that censors were often overzealous and did not respect the hard work and commitment of the students. It was alleged that censors were sometimes confrontational, and acted beyond their remit. Overall, it was seen that there was a lack of communication between the editorial team and the staff involved, and this was destructive to the quality of the newspaper and staff/pupil relations in general. The Council felt strongly that such a situation should not continue, and that it would be to everybody’s benefit to make the production of Black and White more transparent and fair.

The Council called for the creation of a document containing official guidelines for the censors, detailing what should and should not be censored; the Council will produce a draft of these for next week. It also recommended the censorship of the newspaper be administered by representatives of both staff and students, and possibly parents also. This would ideally be done on a rotational system, to prevent bad relationships and excessive dominance of the content, though the logistics of this may be impossible. The Council feels strongly that Black and White is a valuable institution of life at St Paul’s, and hopes the changes suggested will improve its production and grant it a long and successful future.

 Liberalisation at St Paul’s

The Council will be beginning a wide-ranging review of the rules and practices of St Paul’s in the hope of making it a freer, happier place to be. Some felt that, in general terms, the school did not place sufficient trust in its pupils, particularly in the upper years, and that freedoms were often unnecessarily limited. The Council will deal with this on an instance-by-instance basis, and will be consulting other schools to try and get a broader perspective. Contributions are positively encouraged, so if you have a problem with the way something is done, let us know. The box is in the atrium.

 University Advice

It was raised that the quality of advice for those applying to university was, though often of a high standard, not meeting the requirements of all students. Some felt applicants not applying to Oxbridge were given much less support than those who were. More on this next week.

  Citizenship Committee

The Council gives its full support to the Committee in its deliberations, and welcomes the proposals for next year’s provision. It will respond to the minutes as and when they are received on details, but broadly feels that citizenship should be taught separately from other subjects, and have a significant amount of curriculum time.

 Notices

Some thought the 10.15 notices were rather long, boring, and not always very well utilised. It was felt that there should be a code for their use to help prevent this.