“SCHOOL elections used to be just about popularity,” year 11 student at QueanbeyanHigh School, Grace Cooper, says.

But not any more. Cooper and fellow year 11 student Rochelle Shilling, are both prefects (that structure remains) that when it comes to the Student Representative Council, they’ve gone in a radically different direction.

Michael Guilfoyle, maths teacher and SRC co-ordinator at Queanbeyan High, doesn’t beat about the bush when he says: “This year’s Student Representative Council has been the best SRC this school has ever seen”— so good that their photos and names have been placed in a time capsule in the school hall.

Guilfoyle puts this phenomenon down to an unusual participatory model in which, on the suggestion of some lively year 10 students, every student in the school was invited to be a hands-on member of the SRC by turning up to the weekly meetings and participating in council events.

Earlier this year, for instance, as reported in “CityNews”, the SRC created three mosaics commissioned by Queanbeyan City Council, now installed in the new Crawford Street Lifestyle precinct. There was no force, but the students did it.

At a ceremony yesterday, Queanbeyan mayor Tim Overall highlighted the many achievements of the student council, including those mosaics, a fourth mosaic made by the SRC and installed last Wednesday, thousands of dollars raised and donated back to the school, uniforms worn by the school’s martial arts club, custom-made and imported from Japan and two large marquees purchased by the SRC at the cost of more than $2500. They even bought the year 12 formal ticket for the school’s international exchange student.

“We have so many good workers here,” year 10 livewire Maddison Norton tells “CityNews”. Norton was one of only 150 students from across the State to attend the 25th annual NSWSRC State conference and she explains that under the new structure, it is the students who actually do the work who are acknowledged with badges of office.

Naturally, the badges are paid for by the SRC through fund-raising barbecues and dances, where, by making council members for  their own tickets and food, they can now raise over $1000 a time.

According to Cooper, the democratic process has meant a huge turnout to SRC meetings and an obvious growth of confidence among the student population. “People do step up,” she says, “and we’re not just a council, we’ve become a wider friends’ group.”

Cooper, Shilling and Norton theorise that the lack of compulsion leads to  a greater turnout and higher participation, so that at the very least a quarter of the school population is now involved in hands-on events.

Guilfoyle summed up his favourite SRC colourfully, as “a group of dedicated ‘work horses’ rather than a group of ‘show ponies’”. But, he declares he expects next year’s to be even better.

The full list of students receiving badges is as follows: India Anderson, Year 12, Anna-Maria Antonijevic, Year 7, Shelbie Catania, Year 8, Leojac Conroy, Year 10, Craig Cook, Year 11, Grayce Cooper, Year 11, Benjamin Cowe, Year 10, Hannah Felton, Year 8, Mitchell Frost, Year 12, Maddison Godden, Year 12, Alysha Graham, Year 8, Victoria Hales, Year 12, Xenia Jacobs, Year 8, Curtis Lauro, Year 10, Maddison Norton, Year 10, Bella Paisley-Dew, Year 8, Hayley Phelps, Year 7, Ty Phelps, Year 10, Rayna Sharma, Year 12, Rochelle Shilling, Year 11, Penny Slater, Year 10 and Laura Sparkes, Year 10.

The inaugural SRC’s leader shield, voted on by the SRC, went to “their natural leader,” Maddie Godden.