Were you a school prefect?

At my grammar school it was the norm for everyone in the Upper Sixth to be a prefect.
They decided to make an exception in my case!!!

My secondary school had a system where each fifth year class were prefects on a rota. Our class had the reputation for keeping order so much better than any other class. Then one day we were busted and, to our form tutor's shame and our annoyance we were all banned from ever being prefects again.

You see we'd found the perfect way of controlling the corridors and toilets. Bribery and corruption. If it was cold and you wanted to stay in then you shared whatever sweets etc you had with us and you behaved impecibly or you would feel the force of our displeasure and literally find yourself outside in the cold. If you wanted a smoke in the toilets then it cost you a cigarette. In return you didn't have to hide in the cubicles unless a member of staff appeared and if he/she queried the smell of smoke we would persuade him/her that someone must have been smoking during lesson time because we had been there all break making sure it didn't happen.

We thought it was a business arrangement in which everyone won. There was no extortion and often we gave our spoils to the kids who didn't have much. More Robin Hood than the Sheriff of Nottingham. But for some reason the adults took a very low view of it when they found out lol.

VQ - I love it! My problem when I became a teacher was that I was usually on the pupils' side against the establishment.

Mooniter sounds fun conjures up all sorts of pictures

we had a weird system with prefects & a second tier of under prefects - I was one of them but all my friends were prefects, mind you I was the coolest of the geeks

Never a prefect or a monitor, Mum couldn't afford all the correct uniform so teachers loved to tell me how I couldn't represent the school. I loved school believe it or not and did quite well.

Yes I was one ...but the RE teacher loathed me ...such a christian attitude

Anyway one of my duties was reading the 'lesson' in school assemblies. The others who had to do it, always got something from the New Testament ...me ...she gave those horrible Old Testament passages with all the begats in !!

And ...she wouldn't let me do a reading in the cathedral on Founder's Day either.

Boy ...I'd forgotten all of this until reading this thread. Just shows what gets seared into and buried in one's memory!

So those of you unhappy not to have been prefects ...just remember ...'the grass isn't always greener!!

Prefects in our grammar school were elected by the upper 6th. I was considered too flighty (only a few did not make it). I remember the HT asking me why. I did not mind. Can't remember what the duties would have been, or who was head girl.
Interesting though as later life has shown that my most comfortable role in a group is a leader/chair. School obviously did not tap into my leadership qualities - or give me any opportunities to demonstrate them!
Oh except I think I might have been elected head of house - which was an election by all age groups in the house, and conducted the house choir in the eisteddfod.
I was once in a training dept where all the other trainers were head girls!

There were so few girls left in the sixth in my school that they made us all prefects! As far as I remember we had to marshal the younger pupils in when the bell rang and stand at the top and bottom of the stairs keeping order and telling them to take their scarves off! When there was the big Asian flu epidemic, we (strangely unaffected) had to go and look after younger classes in the absence of teachers who went down like flies.

Yes . I was not only a prefect but Head Girl! Fortunately, this strategy didn't work and a number of us, including me, were expelled shortly before the end of the year for general disruption and subversion.

No! I left my boarding grammar school to take my A levels at technical college.
I was very unhappy at school and refused to stay on for the sixth form.

I was a prefect - and luckily so were my two boyfriends

Nope. Not popular enough to get the votes, I guess. That was a good thing as I was already a bossy boots so heaven knows what I would have turned into if I had been given praetorial powers.

No way - I would have been expelled from St Trinian's

No. I got a "black mark" in my first year at grammer school which meant I could never be a prefect no matter how good I might have been after that!! I left school at 16 much to the disgust of the Headmistress who told me I was letting my family down. I'm a 4 times Chief Executive of medium size charities and now have 250 staff working with me!!

Yes I was a prefect and I am ashamed to say a very bad one. There was one girl I disliked (not even sure why) and I deliberately picked on her regularly. Met her recently after over 60 years and she was so pleased to see me and we had a really good chat. She obviously didn't remember but I did as it as always been with me and when I read of bullying I know thats what I was doing to her.