involver is an award-winning social enterprise that improves school councils and student voice.
Young people should learn that making your voice heard, making a difference and ‘democracy’ is about doing and is for everyone. Education provides a great opportunity to do this; over 90% of schools have a school council and every institution uses student voice in some way.
But too often, schools teach that having a say is just about moaning, only clever students are allowed to make a difference, and democracy is only about voting. The world of politics often reinforces this.
We’re here to challenge this. And help the UK to become a ‘doing democracy’ – where everyone understands their world, and knows that they can change it.
To do this, we work in three main areas; school councils, student voice and wider democracy.
You can also find out more about the projects we’re involved with.
Asher Jacobsberg has been involved in youth leadership since he was at school himself. At school he pushed forward democratic student voice, including having students on the interview panel for the new deputy head. He’s proud to say his old school still sees this as a very important part of their interview process – he’s a bit less proud to admit that he started this over 13 years ago. Asher was also elected chairman of Rugby Youth Council around 1996, unfortunately the Borough Council then disbanded it as they didn’t like losing control of what it was saying.
At the same time Asher was moving into leadership roles with ULPSNYC-Netzer (now LJY-Netzer) a democratic, peer-led, Jewish youth movement. Eventually Asher rose to become the Camps Organiser, Treasurer and then General Secretary of the whole movement, representing and training other young people and assisting them to run educational, fun events, camps and trips.
Over the next six years Asher worked for School Councils UK and occasionally as a freelance citizenship consultant. In this time he ran training for students and staff in all types of schools; written many guides and sessions on how to get the most out of their school council. Key projects included developing a national set of standards for school councils and a method for assessing them, writing the School Councils Organiser and conducting research for the SSAT and DCSF into best practice in pupil voice methods being used across England. Asher’s pioneering work with School Councils UK has placed him as one of the UK’s leading experts on school councils and student voice.
That said, Asher has a bit of a problem with the term ‘pupil voice’, he feels strongly that genuine, active involvement is what’s important and that ‘pupil voice’ is often far too passive:
Giving someone a voice is one thing; listening to it is another; but letting people take action to identify and solve their own problems is what we have to aim for.
In 2009 Asher set up involver with Greg.
Greg Sanderson jumped straight into getting young people more engaged with politics when he finished university. Firstly by writing Citizenship resources for the Hansard Society Scotland; looking at how Parliamentary politics could be made exciting and applicable for people at school. After several years working in Edinburgh, Greg moved down to London to work for School Councils UK. There he continued to write, but also developed into creating policy and writing and running training for school staff and young people. Greg worked particularly closely with local authority staff who had a remit to support participation.
In 2008 Greg was selected to go on secondment to the Citizenship and PSHE Team of the Department for Children, Schools and Families (DCSF), where he was able to be part of policy development from the other side of the fence. This combination of experiences and skills makes Greg something of a guru in the practical application of active involvement in the Citizenship curriculum. He advises UNICEF UK on their Child Friendly Communities Initiative, and the region of Kosice, Slovakia on youth democracy, and is a Governor of Church Lane Pupil Referral Unit in the London Borough of Brent.
Greg was recently named as one of the Top 30 entrepreneurs under the age of 30 in London, by Square Mile Magazine, and one of the Future 100 young social entrepreneurs by Striding Out.
