At Leipzig International School Kindergarten, a simple question sparked a powerful idea: Who should decide what’s on the lunch menu?
To bring student voice into this everyday decision, the Kindergarten partnered with Grade 12 IBDP student Friedrich, who spent months designing a child-friendly voting machine that allows our youngest learners to share their preferences. After testing the system and providing feedback, the Kindergarten Student Council helped introduce it to their friends at Kindergarten.
The Process: It began with a simple but important problem: the Kindergarten lunch menu was being decided entirely by adults. While the intention was positive, the reality was clear – the people making the choices were not the ones eating the food.
As a Kindergarten, we recognised an opportunity. If we are committed to developing student agency and voice, then this needed to extend beyond the classroom. The lunch menu became an authentic context to explore participation, ownership and decision-making.
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