From school council noticeboards to progress boards

Can your school council noticeboard actually help drive change? Here’s a simple idea for what you could do with that space that would actually make your school council more effective.

Can your school council noticeboard actually help drive change?

Pretty much every school I go to has one and they almost all consist of the same things:

Photos of the school council (often last year’s)
Minutes of the the last meeting (who stops at a noticeboard to read closely-typed minutes?)
A poster saying ‘have your say/make a difference/we’re your voice!’

Other than underlining for Ofsted that you have a school council, what does this actually achieve?

How about if you used that space instead for a Progress Board. This would allow everyone in the school to see:

What the school council is working on
Who they talk to to get involved
What the hold ups are (this can put gentle pressure on a slow-moving Headteacher or Caretaker to respond)
What’s off-limits and what’s been achieved

Anyway after years of describing this idea to people and sketching it up on flipcharts at training sessions I finally created a graphic last night which shows just what I mean.

School council progress board — If you set up a board like this you need to make sure it is updated at least once a week: make a member of the school council Progress Board Officer. Click the image to see the full-sized version.

Do you have any other ideas for what might go on here (or on a board next to it).

I’d also love to see how something like this could be part of a school council’s page on their VLE or website.

Let us know in the comments if you’ve got any ideas.