Please Enter Your Problems & Suggestions

RCHK Student Council

Please Enter Your Problems & Suggestions

2/2/2013

32 Comments

Mr Rogers

6/2/2013 10:49:22 am

Great looking website

Concerned Student

6/2/2013 09:48:51 pm

Ok. First of all, I appreciate the council's efforts in attempting to lower the canteen prices. However, the coupon scheme won't solve the problem!! The coupon scheme is just a temporary solution for a small group of students, and the majority of the student group still needs to pay the regular prices! I do not see how this scheme will lower the prices of food at school in the long run. What we need is a long term reduction in prices and surveillance for shrinking portions of food and beverages. Some of the paninis have increased $3 dollars in price, from $27 to $30 dollars. The sizes of the cookies have also shrunk when compared to a few years ago. The octopus card vending machine only sells expensive food and drinks (severely overpriced). I urge you to give us a long term plan instead of short term incentives and "solutions" that only benefit the minority.

Student

3/3/2013 08:44:05 pm

I agree too. Chartwells is already making profit. Why can't it have prices like Seven Eleven (Thats an example). And as students our meals should be cheap. If you go to a university canteen they get extra cheap meals which is also called a student meal. And apparently we are students!

Anon

6/2/2013 10:13:28 pm

I also find the high prices of the cafeteria a pressing problem (among many others, but that's not really the point). Right now Year 12s and 13s are allowed to leave school during lunchtimes, which is something other secondary students should logically also be allowed to do. Currently we can't really "force" the cafeteria to lower prices, but we could introduce competition by allowing other choices (leaving school).

Annonymous

6/2/2013 10:16:43 pm

I think you shouldn't just focus on food issues, bullying's a pretty big problem too.

Miguel Borje

6/2/2013 10:21:28 pm

Thank you for your time. However after months of negotiation with the Chartwells at RCHK they have not been able to address these issues (price increase, serving-size decrease, etc.) directly at this time. Nevertheless, upon agreement these coupons were seen as a short-term solution in order to provide a relief of price in some form. Also, with our student-council term coming to a close the new council should aim to continue developing a more effective long-term plan in the Academic year to come. Which leads me to your comment on the vending-machines.

Honestly, we haven't seen this issue being brought up as much recently compared to the price increase of normal cafeteria food. Perhaps if octopus card payment was available for the cheaper vending-machines than this would help as well, yes?

Again, we thank you for your comment and I will definitely bring this up in this next meeting.

Concerned Year 7 link

7/2/2013 09:07:42 am

Hello,

I also enjoy the coupon scheme, but I think, instead of coupons, how about having a $3 price cut once every 2 months? That would be good for all of us, unless if they are paid $100 dollars a day!

I also find 90% of eating space occupied by gamers from all years, so if there is a solution for this, please email me!

Thanks!

Jayrice

7/2/2013 08:44:50 pm

Well I problem that some Junior secondary students (Including me) have been playing table tennis during our primary years, and for years we asked to add or more tables towards parts of the school, also the price for foods and especially drinks are all over priced, normally a bottle of drink cost 7-8 dollars, in school it's 10, even though 2 dollars may seem little, but if you buy regularly or a lot of students buy it, it can add up to over hundreds and hundreds worth of money, Thank you.

Jacklyn Chan

14/2/2013 01:09:37 am

Thank You for expressing your concerns.

We understand that the overpricing of foods are a problem, however after the CNY break we will be launching a cash coupon scheme with Chartwells in order to relieve the food prices, this is a small step towards the right direction and we hope to continue to work at solving this issue in the long term. But for now, we hope that the cash coupon scheme that was kindly sponsored by Chartwells will be beneficial to the student body.

As for your table concern, the Student Council will bring this up on our agenda at our next meeting in creating more effective space in school.

Jayrice

11/3/2013 11:46:01 pm

Thank you for your reply, but I just wanted to point out again that only 23 people in the whole year level has the coupon, which means about the amount of 8/10 of a class normally, I think a way to let everyone have a try is to have it like a revolving circle, firstly the year group 1 (7.1, 8.1, 9.1 etc) has the coupons, then after 2 to 3 months later there could be another turn, for the year group 2, (7.2, 8.2, 9.2 etc) and continuing on, but every time it should have sufficient coupons for each class

A DP Student

17/2/2013 04:36:16 pm

On representation, student government, and school improvement
The shortcomings of the Student Council system

Dear Sir,

It has come to my attention that the electoral process for the 2013-2014 Student Council is due to start, and the purpose of this letter is to reflect upon some visible issues of the student government structure.

The opinions below should in no way be interpreted as critical to the work and efforts of the 2012-2013 council. Not only have they been a sufficiently passionate, dedicated group in gathering student feedback, but as their website suggests, some key initiatives have been taken, a first for RCHK. So this letter targets the system, not the people.

The inaugural RCHK student council of 2011-2012 was elected cabinet style, with the entire student body collectively electing a president, a co-president, a treasurer, a secretary, and two public relations officers. To my understanding, the move to a year-level representative system, with then appointed chairs within that group, was made by the school leadership with the support of that inaugural council. There was a two-part rationale of this system; a) such that representatives would come across year-levels and not simply a group of friends that decided to run together, and b) that the student constituency would not be forced to elect for an entire team with representatives that they may not necessarily favor. In hindsight, it may seem a mistake- a) if the original system was given a chance to develop and mature, it may way produce groups that are composed of students from varying backgrounds or year-levels, and b) although constituents under the new system may vote for their year level representative, they have no say over the elections in other years. This means that most of the body responsible for reflecting their views, and implementing programs based on these views, were still not democratically representative on their behalf.

In hindsight, it seems hypocritical to argue that an inaugural council with those above cited flaws could have consented to a change in the electoral system on behalf of all students. Regardless, let us continue exploring the shortcomings of this current system.

Firstly, the role of the student government here does seem to be both legislative and executive in nature- such that the councilors both seek and represent the views of students, as well as devise and execute programs. I will now bring the example of the KGV council. In addition to senior and middle school representatives (responsible for separately student constituents of their age), there is an elected president, vice-president, secretary, as well as PTA representatives (on events such as school fair), site (facilities) managers, and public relations managers. This organization effectively differentiates between “legislators” and “administrators”, which may seem bureaucratic and unnecessary, but the benefits are clear. Few to no governments in the world will place have these bodies run parallel to each other, not only because it leads to a need to balance workload between keeping in touch with students and implementing programs, but further because this is not the most effective allocation of human resources.

So secondly, different representatives will have different talents, such as organizing events, using social media, or perhaps managing a budget. Of course, the current student council may in fact have specific roles, but it would be more beneficial if voters could well in advance know which representative would occupy which position, prior to the elections. In almost every government, even those than run under a central committee of collective leadership (such as the Chinese government), there is a cabinet, with individual members holding a separate portfolio (e.g. to run diplomacy, or education, or the economy). There is nothing undemocratic about the old system in this regard, especially when students knew in advance who would be secretary, treasurer, PR manager, etc. Even in most if not all western governments, the average voter does not know who in advance will become the Secretary of State, of Education, or of the Treasury. But in our old system, we already gave this benefit.

Thirdly, not only will a representative-and-cabinet system enable us to have designated members voice opinions while others lead programs (leading to greater capacity to accomplish work at both ends), it makes members more specialized, and thus the entire system more transparent, empowering the student constituent. Right now, there is no way for voters of the year 9 constituency to know whether their year 9 representatives deserve reelection. I concede that it is possible to assume, for example, because of the opening of swimming lanes and starting of the late arrival scheme, that the DP representatives have pushed the agenda for their years strongly. However, if we had a cabinet system, where one member might be responsible for fac

Student

18/2/2013 01:25:39 am

The alleged purposes of the coupon scheme are hardly convincing. While one time it was said to be to "relieve the food prices" of the cafeteria, it was also said to be to act as an incentive for students to be more involved in the school community.

The former is hardly convincing that the scheme does not relieve food prices by handing $5 to 23 students in each year level. In some sense, you are actually relieving the pressure on Chartwells that you are allowing them to shut-the-student-body-up about food prices using around $800. Certainly a sweet deal for them.

The other alleged purpose about student incentives is just as nonsensical. Firstly, I personally do not see the lack of student involvement in school activities and affairs. Even if there are, no surveys, statistics, or evidence of any sort was presented to indicate the mere existence of the said "issue", which is disrespectful to the student community this "student council" ideally represents. Thus, with this purpose, the coupon scheme is addressing a nonexistent problem. Finally, regardless of the validity of the issue, I fail to see how the scheme will have any significant effect, if any, on student involvement.

Overall, I would like to see the student council address issues that are valid and while doing so, consult the student body about it.

RCHK Student Council

18/2/2013 12:28:03 pm

Dear concerned student,

We thank you for your comments and feedback, but we would like to reiterate our intentions of pushing out this scheme. Student Council 2012-2013 has provided multiple platforms to voice out their concerns, via email, website, facebook and contacting any member individually.

With the new Canteen Coupon Scheme coming out soon, the idea came from multiple students emailing us urging us to do something to relieve the pressures of high food prices, especially at break time. We immediately took action and contacted management of Chartwells. Let us make it clear, that not everyone will benefit from this scheme, and that was what we had planned for. The method of distributing the coupons is still under discussion, and the co-chairs will be attending focus group meetings of all year levels to gather feedback. May we also remind you that the coupons will be resupplied ever academic quarter, so there will be 92 coupons given to each grade in one year, that is more than 60% of students in each grade having the chance of obtaining this coupon.

Other factors that had to be considered before deciding on the coupon scheme was time and the willingness of Chartwells. Student Council was looking for a solution that will satisfy the majority needs to students in the shortest amount of time. Who knows, maybe you can run for council next year and push a new scheme out that will benefit the whole student body, but that wasn't our intention this year.

Look at this matter in different point of view, Chartwells could have rejected our proposal and not provide any promotions. After 6-7 years in RCHK, this is the first time Chartwells is working with the Student Council to offer discounts on their products. As we always said, this is the first small step towards the correct direction in future collaborations between Chartwells and the Student body.

We would like to make it clear again, that council does not have the time to tackle non-existent problems. This scheme may not be much help to you, but it does to others. We thank you for your comments, and will take into consideration your views when we push out any new schemes in the remainder of our time in office.

RCHK Student Council 2012-2013

Anon (again)

20/2/2013 12:50:54 pm

It clearly states in the student organizer that each subject can set a maximum amount of 80 minutes of homework per week and 25 minutes per night. However, nearly all assessments require at least two or more hours to complete. We also have very frequent homework tasks from subjects such as Math and Chinese, which also take up a large portion of our time. In Year 10 and above, we also need to accumulate a certain amount of service hours/activities as a requirement.

Another student has once proposed on Facebook that we allow more communication between teachers as to the deadlines of assessments to prevent too much clutter. Personally, I believe that would be one of the best possible solutions.

RCHK Student Council

20/2/2013 10:55:56 pm

Hi Anon,

You are correct about the times mentioned in our student organizers on the amount of homework that should be assigned to us every night. We will definitely voice this out to the senior management team when we have our next meeting, and we will reply you.

Student of Year 9

23/2/2013 06:10:21 pm

Dear Student Council,

I would like to talk about a problem related to the technology part of RCHK.

One of the main pillars of the technology system is the networks inside the school. The 4 main networks (RCHK-STUDENT, RCHK-STAFF, RCHK-VISITOR and more recently RCHK-STAFF-n) are used by the community of RCHK to access the Internet for research and other uses.

These networks have been created and started as the school was opened, when the school had plenty of buffer for remaining students. The network RCHK-STUDENT was not fully utilized at that point of time, therefore the speed of accessing the internet at that time was not a problem.

However, 7 years later with a school of more than 2000 students in a school day, I think that the network RCHK-STUDENT is not only fully utilized, but severely overloaded by constant requests by more than 2000 computers to access the internet. The result of this is constant inability to show a webpage in a reasonable amount of time, sometimes not connecting at all, which I suspect that many students are experiencing right now.

This issue has been a problem since 2-3 years ago and in my opinion should be solved in the near future or ASAP.

I think that a complete overhaul of the internet system might be necessary to completely solve the problem.

I would also want to ask a question to the ICT. Please help me relay them to the ICT department.

ICT, we had seen posters around the school and the computer detecting a network during late January called 21CLHK. I would like to ask:

What is this network?
Why is this network created?
Is it a try to solve the RCHK-STUDENT network congestion?

Student Council

26/2/2013 09:46:36 pm

Dear Student of Year 9,

Slow Internet Speed, we realize, is a major problem for students at RCHK due to the dependency on Laptops for most classes. We will personally email Red door within this week notifying them of our concerns as students and suggesting possible solutions (if you have any ideas for how to improve the network speed, please feel free to email us at [email protected])

Regarding 21CLHK, this network was used for the "21st Century Learning Hong Kong". A teacher conference based at school earlier this year, this network does not have anything to do with students at RCHK and was only brought in for the conference.

Thanks again for your concern, this matter will be brought up to the appropriate personel at ICT and we will do our best to correct this problem as soon as we can for you!

Many Thanks,

Student Council

Year 9

28/2/2013 09:14:52 pm

Thank you for the reply. During the course of this week I and many others are finding network like RCHK-STURENT-n, I hope this network could solve the slow internet speed we have in this school

Another Student

8/3/2013 09:23:54 pm

Well, first I suggest the council to get hold of the school's contract with the ISP and determine whether the speed here is equivalent to what is written in the contract. If not, I suggest the council to urge the school to change our ISP or upgrade the plan.

Student

28/2/2013 11:48:53 pm

Whenever I go to the Library or the cafeteria during lunch time, there are at least 3 tables of Year 7 gamers. I cannot even work in the library, because of their noise. They should at least turn off the computer speakers.

Student Councl

3/3/2013 08:55:44 pm

Dear student,

We are aware that Y7s have been invading areas such as the canteen, hubs and now even the library for inappropriate uses (gaming). This is a serious matter that our Y7 rep has voiced out before, we will be in contact with Mrs Walker and find a solution to this problem and reply you as soon as possible.

If you could, would you like to let us know your name so we can follow up with you personally?

Thanks,
Student Council 2012-2013

RCHK Council

15/3/2013 11:57:46 pm

Dear student,

We have contacted Mrs Walker and she understands the problem. She will increase the frequency of catching younger students from playing computer games and causing a lot of noise in the library. If caught, they will be sent to Mr Wheeler's office immediately.

anon

10/3/2013 12:12:47 am

will the food tech room be open to DP students? it can be one solution to the prices are the canteen, while not exiting the campus. Will there be arrangements that perhaps students can use this room during their free lessons and no class is being held in the room?

RCHK Student Council

10/3/2013 12:19:28 am

When you mean open to DP students as in allowing DP students to cook? This will require teacher supervision and a lot of security measures which we think... will be very troublesome. But if you could elaborate more on your idea, we can mention it in our meeting this week.

Y10

10/3/2013 11:00:53 pm

There's another issue that I would like to mention here - scheduling events. While I recognize that events outside of school, such as external competitions and possibly EOTC, can't be postponed on the school's part, events inside the school could be rescheduled to not clash with others. One recent case would be SEAMC (an external competition involving various schools from different countries) and Ingenium 2013. Some participants in SEAMC (including me) had previously purchased tickets to Ingenium, but however we eventually missed the event due to being away from HK.

So far as I know, there are no ticket refunds for events such as Ingenium and Amplify (among others). However, would it be more convenient for all parties involved to publicize any school events previously planned before finalizing dates?

RCHK Student Council

11/3/2013 11:52:54 pm

Dear Y10 student,

Thank you for your comments. We understand that there are many events in and outside school that clash on the same day. However you have to understand that the schedule for using the PAC is very full, and many events have to seize every opportunity to use the PAC when available.

To resolve this issue however, we will discuss in our meeting a way to make sure staff all share a common googledoc and display dates of school excursions, workshops, inter-house events and CAS projects to prevent them clashing on the same day.

Thanks,
Student Council 2012-2013

Brian

11/3/2013 02:53:58 pm

We seem to have a lot of equipment for PE such as balls, frisbee's and some other stuff. A lot of the time during units this is put to waste. Would it be possible to have a borrow-return scheme for balls and frisbees and etc. for lunch times and breaks. Also to eliminate some of the space shortage is it possible to have the gym open for Lunch times, assuming no one is using it.

RCHK Student Council

16/3/2013 12:04:30 am

Hi Brian,

Your suggestion for a borrow-return system is feasible and will be discussed in our next meeting. However, the gym is FULLY BOOKED at all times because it is always shared with the Primary students.

Concerned Year 8

12/3/2013 04:43:05 pm

I would like to address that the majority of teachers in the secondary school do not offer any stamps as promised in Page 45 and 46 of our organizers. This greatly reduces our chances of obtaining a green or bronze certificate, let alone a silver or gold.

I would appreciate if this was brought to your attention and that teachers would be notified to look out for students with good behaviors associated with the learner profiles.

RCHK Student Council

15/3/2013 11:59:25 pm

Dear Year 8 student,

Thank you for letting us know. We will definitely follow up on this.

Brian

22/4/2013 06:37:19 pm

As a member of a few school teams I think that when we go on all day tournaments or meets it is not fair that on our reports we are graded as 'Absent'. Even though we may be away from school on that day it is on a school trip in which we are representing the school and participating for the school. Wondering if the student council could discuss this or if there is already something in place?

RCHK Student Council

7/5/2013 01:57:23 am

Dear Brian,

This will come up in the agenda of the SC for meeting tomorrow. We are unaware of this however, but will be adressed.

We are confident that this can be resolved quite easily, especially if you are away representing the school. Typically the 'absent' may stand for 'off campus-but present' or absent 'away from campus (therefore at home)'.

Your comment will be posted after it is approved.

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