You likely haven’t heard of Malikah Tankard but the nine-year-old could soon be Bermuda’s newest “mayor”.

She hopes to become the head of Wonderland, a simulated society at Purvis Primary School designed to teach students leadership skills and prepare them for the real world.

Malikah ran on an anti-corruption ticket and rumour had it she was sweetening up the voters with baked goods on the playground at recess.

“She’s probably a shoo-in,” said principal Judith Alexander, “particularly since she isn’t running against anyone.”

The vote takes place at the Warwick school on Friday.

Wonderland is separated into 20 enterprises, each with about ten students. Some of the enterprises are administrative, such as city council and peacekeepers, while others are more commercial such as The Farm, Exquisite Dance Movement and The Wonderland Gazette. Every group is run by a chief executive officer, usually an older student. At the end of the term, students get together on a special market day to perform, and buy and sell goods using Wonderbucks.

Students are paid a wage for their participation; CEOs and judges are paid more than regular folks.

Wonderland is no utopia. There’s corruption in Wonderland, like anywhere else.

Malikah wants to see that changed.

“Last year people were stealing money and kids were underpaid,” she said. “I don’t want that to happen this year.”

Mrs Alexander said the project was about teaching students leadership skills and helping to build their confidence. The project has been going for several years at the school and is based on a similar programme in the United States.

“It was introduced by a previous principal,” said Mrs Alexander. “Since I’ve been here I’ve put my own spin on it. I wanted the students to run things themselves without a lot of intervention from teachers.”

She said she has seen many shy children suddenly decide they want to be CEO.

“They watch from day one, and then one day they say, ‘I can do that’,” said Mrs Alexander.

If Wonderland prepares the students for anything it’s all the bureaucracy they will encounter as adults. Wonderland has its rules decided by students at the beginning of the year. Every enterprise has to be licensed by the City Council. Enterprises not displaying their licence face fines.

“During the first three weeks of school the City Council was busy fining people,” said Mrs Alexander.” Now the enterprises have gotten wise and they make sure the licence is displayed, so the City Council is less busy. They only meet once a month and members take part in other enterprises the rest of the time.”

If students want to change enterprises they must fill out a job application. For some of the little ones, this can be quite a chore.

Ashley Attride-Stirling, ten, is in charge of justice and also vetting the applications. When The Royal Gazette visited she was busy sentencing a student for not wearing the Wonderland vest all students are required to wear on Wednesday afternoons.

“Order in the court,” she howled and banged a real gavel.

The little boy stood before her in tears. Students take what happens in Wonderland very seriously.

He was found guilty and taken away in plastic handcuffs. If he wasn’t able to pay the fine he would be sent to Wonderland prison — a classroom that doubles as a jail on Wednesday afternoons.

The students seemed to delight in arresting one another and took a no-excuses approach to justice.

After the errant Wonderlander left, Ashley perused a job application in front of her.

“This guy says he wants to work in the courts,” she grumbled, “but he hasn’t said what job he wants to do exactly.”

She sounded like every celebrity television judge you’ve ever met.

“I would like to be a lawyer some day,” she said. “I really enjoy dealing with the different cases.”

Over at The Wonderland Gazette, eight-year-old reporter Arcedis Rawlins was working on a big scoop: “Boy escapes prison”.

Down the hall, a group of girls was busy running the etiquette enterprise.

“We act like ladies and we make different stuff,” said eight-year-old Zha-lei Looby. “Boys can’t be on the etiquette group. If they acted like gentlemen they could but we know that wouldn’t happen.”

Students at The Farm were debating what they were going to sell on market day. Its eight-year-old CEO, Che’Chulae Dowling, was a huge success as the head of another enterprise last year.

“Fashion by Design made a lot of Wonderbucks last year,” said Mrs Alexander. “They cleaned up.”

Che’Chulae then decided she longed for the quiet life and switched to The Farm. The rules were clearly posted. The number one rule? Listen to the CEO.

“When our children leave here and go to the next level they do extremely well,” said Mrs Alexander. “They have a clear idea of where they are going and how to get there. They are also in tune with what they need from adults. We teach them, ‘You have your voice and you have your choice’.

“It is not unusual for a child to say ‘Mrs Alexander can I have a meeting with you?’ On Monday, we had careers day. We are trying to make sure everything ties in so they can see where they are going in the future.”