STUDENT SPOTLIGHT – GESS Student Council

September rolled around and gradually posters of students started to fill the school hallways. Students stopped and peered eagerly at the posters featuring the many Student Council President hopefuls for this Academic Year, quickly registering faces and the various accompanying messages.

It was that time of the year again when the students would get to decide who should represent their interests and be their voice!

The Student Council elections have long featured in the GESS calendar as an important event. While this time, they had to be taken online for the most part, it did not deter widespread interest and participation at all.

Eventually, two Grade 9 students emerged the chosen winners: Otis Hoelscher and Alexander Ott.

Otis had only been at GESS for a few months when he made the bold decision to run for the elections and the decision paid off very nicely for him.

Alexander, on the other hand, has been a student at GESS for many years and seen the school transform in many ways and had developed a personal desire to contribute solidly to the student body.

We decided to sit down for a chat with both students to get a peek into what their experience was like running for the elections and what visions and plans they have for their fellow students and the school. 

Tell us a bit about yourselves!

Otis: My name is Otis and I am from Class G9B. I have been studying at GESS for 2.5 months. Before that I was at Dover Court International and just moved to GESS.

Alexander: I am Alexander. I am from Class E9A. I have been at GESS for more than 10 years, a bit over a decade.

What made you want to run for the Student Council presidency?

Alexander: So, last year I was in the Student Council as Middle School captain and in the last quarter of the semester I was the substitute Vice-President. During this time, I got an idea of how the Student Council worked and it felt like an achievable pursuit to run for President this year.

Having been at GESS for a decade, I have seen how many things in the school have changed and have been on the receiving end of a lot of the Student Council’s work and past President’s campaigns and speeches.

Now I feel like it is my turn to do the same – I want to be a motivation for students who have great ideas and want to encourage them to go forth and make them happen.

Otis: I suppose I am the exact opposite. Usually, when I start school I think, “Okay I am going to go out with a bang! Do something great at the end”. I never did. So I thought okay instead of waiting the entire school year to do something, why don’t I, straight out the gate, do something I have never been able to do before. Something really exciting! And that is how I became Student Council President.

I suppose an additional motivation was, that I wanted to be really proud of myself when I got to a new school and this is definitely an achievement I could write in my autobiography and that I someday want to remember.  

Could you share one memorable moment from the time you were running for the Student Council presidency?

Alexander: The moment that I remember the most was during the speech itself (referring to the speech the candidates had to deliver to students during the elections). Before, and even a week before, leading up to the speech, I wasn’t necessarily nervous but I was anxious to see how the event would be. Then right before I went up to the pedestal, I just got super nervous and I was almost having a breakdown. But then in my mind I thought I got this, calm down. That was the most memorable moment for me; when I got myself together and said what I had to say and spoke the words I wanted to say. I think it went quite well after that speech. I was happy with myself and the joy that I felt there was one of the most memorable moments throughout the entire campaign and election process.

Otis: Funnily enough, the part I thought was most memorable to me wasn’t the actual speech, though I enjoyed that a ton in spite of being incredibly nervous. What I enjoyed the most was walking around with my friends putting up posters because when I put up my first poster I realised, “Woah, I am doing this. This is actually something I wanted to do and now I am doing it.” It was a pretty incredible feeling when I saw people looking at my posters

What makes the Student Council an important part of the GESS community?

Otis: Well, the GESS student community is made of many different parts. The part where they all connect is the Student Council. We have so many ideas, so many different points of view that we all have to take into consideration and unless we have a central part where they all go and where they are processed, nothing will become of these ideas. The Student Council is where the magic happens: we get the cool ideas, the resources, the people, and we turn ideas into reality, making them the best thing we can and share the results with the whole school community.

What are the top 3 things the Student Council hopes to achieve for the students and the school in this Academic Year?

Alexander: The top 3 things the Student Council wants to achieve: A system that offers students a beneficial way to contact the Student Council. I believe this is important because every student at some point in their school life have a sort of idea, a little spark – something they might want to change. Even those little ideas can be important – they are very special and more specific. This is why the Student Council wants to create a beneficial system through which we could always get constant requests to improve the school life. We are also currently working on engaging the local community more through action projects. For example, we are trying to create a system to collect donations of old shoes so that we can send them off for recycling. We are also going to look at how to enhance the canteen and its offerings further in the interest of students, taking specific feedback from students and looking at how we can effect change using that. We want the students to be happy and this is what this is all about.

Tell us about the setup of the Student Council and the various committees in place to support you in achieving these goals?

Otis: In the center, we have the Student Council and then the Student Council Presidents – myself (Otis) and Alexander. Then we have the different committees – Green and Care Committee, Sports Committee, Events Committee, Student Affairs Committee and Tech Tree Committee. Within each committee. They all work on their individual projects and ideas and submit them to us. We put them together in an agenda that we send out every Friday or Saturday and every Monday we meet up with all the Heads and Vice-Heads of these committees. We discuss the different ideas and try to shape them into something tangible, something we can work on. Then we send feedback back to the committees so that they can rework some things. It is also possible for all of us to get feedback from other students at any point. To reinforce what Alex said, we are working on ways to collect all these little ideas from students efficiently. If the Student Council took in all the ideas, that wouldn’t work but if we had a way for students to submit their well-thought out ideas and we have small teams looking at them and raising the ones they think might be feasible to us then we can work on them.  

Give us a sneak peek into some of the projects the Student Council is working on currently!

Alexander: I believe this might not be common knowledge, but the Casual Days are all organised by the Green and Care Committee in the Student Council. They work with the Management to find suitable charities and they also do the promotion of Casual Day and help with the collection of the money together with the Parents Committee. This is an example of a big project. We also have a lot of projects, simple things that are ongoing that could improve the general school life of students. For example, we have the idea for separation panels in the urinals for male students for them to feel comfortable. These are just few tweaks that we are considering so that we can work on small things constantly to improve the school. If we always have something we are doing constantly it shows the students we care for their wellbeing and we are here to support them to make their school life the best it can be.