Students’ activities at Sainte Pulchérie High School, Turkey

Autonomy for students is encouraged at Sainte Pulcherie High School. Every year, students choose committees to join and organize events. We looked at the attendance lists of different committee meetings at our school in the term of the school year 2019-2020 and 2020-2021 school year. Due to the pandemic, the school was closed after March 2020 and we had online education. In the term of school year 2020-2021, there was online education but in some periodes, students came to school and they had hybrid education. The situation was not easy but most of the time, they tried to organize online events so they were active.

The activities of the committees :

• a)“Mediatheque Committee”: Every month students have meetings to organize events at the Mediatheque at school. They organize “Science day”, “ Horror Day”, “Costume Day”, “Book Day”, etc.
  
  Students organize every event by asking students via google forms. They organized all events before the pandemic but during the pandemic they realized some of them online, some of them they weren’t able to.

• b) Philosophy Club Committee: Volunteer students organize events like “Cinema Philosophy”, “Philosophy Cafe”, Philosophy Presentations during lunch time and after school. They organize all events and communications by themselves . Some students will keep organizing events online in 2020-2021.

• Student Delegates Meeting: Each year student delegates are elected at the school to represent their classmates during different high points of the school year. They have a very important role because they are the spokespersons for the students.  Every month, all delegates and the president of the delegates have meetings with the principal and the guide counselors every month. They kept doing these online in 2021.

Role of the student delegate: Represent his class, be the spokesperson between his class and the teaching team of the school. Establish the class report to prepare for participation in the class council. Speak during the class council and convey the opinion of the students in his class. Prepare the minutes of the meeting in order to present it to the students of his class. Be responsible for the management of the class notebook. Take charge of managing the collection and distribution of cell phones of classmates.  

Role of level delegates on the school council: The delegates responsible for levels take part in the monthly meeting of the school council organized by the director of the school. Each delegate responsible for the level represents his own level. In order to prepare an agenda, each delegate responsible for the level takes surveys of his level. For this he meets with the delegates of each class of his level before the council. During the council, each delegate responsible for the level makes the evaluation of his level, he transmits the academic subjects or other technical subjects of his level. Each delegate responsible for the level has the right to make pedagogical proposals for the proper functioning of the school or for the well-being in high school.

What does the training of student delegates consist of? What is his/her role? Help students fulfill their new mission. Give a general definition of the duties and responsibilities of the delegate. Present the tasks of the delegate in the administrative field. Introduce the school staff working in the different departments. Make people understand the importance of listening and transmitting. Give tools to better express themselves orally. Explain how to prepare minutes and note taking. Listen to election speeches

• 11th grade students organized “Psychology Conference” and had success to invite an expert psychologist online and prepare questions after searching about him. They invited some teachers to online conference.

• The students who are at Erasmus Club, organized special events for UNESCO such as UNESCO World Philosophy Day, UNESCO International Democracy Day.

• Two 12th grade students joined the International Interactive online Conference, “Monument to Language and Book” in Lithuania They searched and wrote their articles about democracy and the conference theme then presented them during online conference. All partners participated in that conference.
  
  
  To find out students’ participation in the activities and their role to improve the school system, students were asked to answer the questions in a questionnaire. About 50 % of students participated in a survey. Teachers also were asked to express their opinion on students‘ participation. There were 80 % who answered the questions.
   

Results showed that:

74% of students feel that they feel happy to be part of their role of the school responsibilities.

65% of the students are actively involved in activities organized by themselves.

70 % of students declared that they can freely express their opinion on different issues but their suggestions are not always accepted.

75% of students believe that the Student Council represents their views.

70% state that they trust the elected Student Council members.

According to teachers the students were active and did their best for their initiatives but some of the students need to improve themselves about those issues.

To sum up, the survey results showed that our students are mostly active and they care about sharing their opinions. There is progress but we still need to work on it. Students are encouraged to become decision takers and the school supports the initiatives of students. On the other hand, we must consider that the pandemic situation made everything a bit difficult.