IGS School Council 2009-2010

Welcome to the IGS School Council’s webpage, where you can keep up to date on all our upcoming events and activities as well as student’s opinions and perspectives. As a School Council we seek to represent all pupils, by putting forward their ideas and successfully putting them into practice. Our aim is to support our school, assist in enhancing its facilities, and help strengthen the bond between the school and its students.

As the elected Student council of 2009-2010, we have a wealth of ideas of what we want to do for the school. Here are some of our current plans, some of which we have already started work on:

The uniform

The uniform was something we unanimously decided to work on as a starting point. For the students, it has been the focus of longstanding complaints and we took it upon ourselves to design a uniform keeping in view, of course, the demands of the majority and the significance of modesty. We carried out a pupil survey in which each student was asked to give their views on how the uniform could improve.  Before carrying out the survey we outlined to the students the basic principles which they had to be mindful of, the most important of which was that the uniform had to be modest, in line with the Islamic dress code. The most popular design ideas were taken on board.

Here are the results of the survey:
More than 90% of the students who participated wanted trousers to replace the skirt in the uniform
Most of those who voted for trousers wanted to wear them with a long tunic and a long, knee-length cardigan.
The vast majority of girls who submitted ideas for the school scarf requested wrap around scarves
4% of the students wanted to continue wearing a long skirt.
So, in accordance with popular student demand, and under the guidance of Ms Ali, we came up with some designs. We presented our prototypes for the uniform on the Cultural Evening last year.

Of course the final decision lies with Mrs Islam, who obviously has a much better idea of the technicalities involved, such as the practicality of the uniform design itself.

Increasing student representation from across the school
One of our main priorities is to involve the whole school in school council activities, and allow the wider school community to contribute. To bring about this change, we devised a Lunchtime Rota, assigning responsibility to the Prefects and House Captains for preventing any untoward activity during the lunch hour.
Aside from this we hope to involve the Prefects in regular meetings with the senior council members to increase student representation and address student issues much more effectively.

Our Charity Campaign
As an annual tradition the School Council choose a worthy cause to support throughout the autumn term. This year, the School Council has chosen to create awareness of and raise funds to help the blind in developing countries. We have selected ‘Sightsavers’ as the charity which best supports our aims.

Why we chose this cause
Over 40 million people worldwide live with blindness and 90% of these blind people live in poor countries. However, 75% of global blindness can be prevented or even cured with access to proper medical treatment.  We hope to alleviate the suffering of these people.

Fundraising Events

World Sight Day
We organised a ‘Fun Day’ on the 8th of October, with a variety of activities, games and stalls providing plenty of fun and entertainment for all.

Assemblies, cake sales and non-uniform days

Sponsored Walk
Every Year the School Council organise a Sponsored Walk in which around 40 students participate. We organised a sponsored walk for our chosen charity, Sightsavers, which took place on the 6th of November. We walked from the school all the way to Marble Arch, then we stopped and had lunch at nearby Hyde Park. All the participants had to collect more than £40 worth of sponsors to take part and some raised well over £100. Overall it was a very enjoyable experience.

Charity Evening