A friend asked for help writing a student voice policy at her school. My answer was 5 quick suggestions on how to create one. They’re all here.
News/Blog
We’ve found some great resources for you, created a student voice audit tool and been doing some thinking about why democracy in schools is so important.
Lots of schools are beginning to think about training their school council, or student voice groups, for next academic year.
If you want to make your student voice READY, then get in touch! You can read more about our training here.
If you’re on Linked in (or is it Linkedin?), and you’re interested in school councils and student voice, then we’ve just set up a new group to connect people.
If you’re on there, and want to join, then visit http://lnkd.in/mpSBk8, or search for Student Voice and School Councils Education Network.
School councils. Student voice. Giving young people a say in how their school is run. Sounds like effort, doesn’t it? Kids are there to be educated, not to take part in it, right? Let’s be clear : schools present a unique opportunity for young people to learn about democracy.
The Government announced today that Heads will be given greater powers to search pupils.
Read all about it here and here.
At the moment, this can only happen if teachers think that pupils are carrying weapons. The new law will mean that they can also search pupils for mobile phones, ipods, drugs etc…
There will be some cases [...]
Hope you’re all doing well and enjoying the sun and World Cup. We’ve created some new resources and found a few things that you and your schools might find useful, so here they are …
Solutions to a number of common school council problems including giving feedback, support from colleagues and meetings that have gone flat.
Great ideas for school council projects and ways in which student voice is being used in schools across the UK.
Our first softball match in the London Charity Softball League was lots of fun.
We’ve entered a joint team with the fabulous Changemakers and British Youth Council.
Our opponents were the British Heart Foundation and although we lost, we had a great time. It’s only our first game though – we definately have lots to [...]
Although this was a while ago, thought I’d post the picture from the 30 under 30 Awards. Thanks too all our friends that came along, and made the day lots of fun…..
And have a great holiday weekend!
Greg
How do you prove your school’s listening ethos?
Can you measure your school’s ethos?
Changing how you run your finances might be the answer.
Pupil interview panels make a huge statement about your school and have all kinds of benefits for staff and students. Rather than banning them as the NASUWT wants to, we suggest here how to do them well.
We aim to dispel some of the misconceptions that the NASUWT’s campaign to roll back student voice is based upon.
I’m a little bit excited today, well actually I have been all week, because tomorrow we’re off to a very swanky awards ceremony at the Hilton in Park Lane, where Greg has won an award!
So, we’ve both bought our outfits and arranged a very select group of colleagues and friends to join us (sorry if [...]
The NASUWT sent out a letter trawling for members’ negative experiences of student voice. Are they intending to launch a broadside on pupils having a say in schools? The letter makes it look that way.
Back in February, two of our colleagues from the Czech Republic spent a week with us. Tomas and Kamila, from CEDU, met with a range of people to learn about the UK’s approach to student voice and school councils. We met colleagues at ACT, Citizenship Foundation, DCSF, London Metropolitan University, Tower Hamlets, Preston Manor school [...]
I was at the QCDA’s Citizenship Key Players meeting last week.
A great day with a range of thoughtful discussions and presentations. Good to see a lot of familiar faces, and hear about citizenship in the new primary curriculum.
Particularly interesting was some of the things that came up from Judith Matharu and Tony Gallagher from Ofsted [...]
We had a great meeting with an organisation called User Voice last week.
Led by best-selling author, and ex-offender, Mark Johnson, they aim to reduce re-offending. Considering 75% of young offenders re-offend within two years of their release from prison, clearly an important job.
One of the ways they are doing this is through prison councils – [...]
See:
http://www.participationworks.org.uk/spotlight-pwne-members/greg-sanderson-involver
Oh and also see Asher look very funny at:
http://changemakers.squarespace.com/professionals/2010/3/5/involving-changemakers.html
