As well as our ongoing training and support that we provide to schools and local authorities, we’re also involved in a number of exciting projects.

If you’re interested in hearing more about any of these projects, or would like to chat about a new project – then please get in touch. Here’s a selection of what we’re up to:

Project… Working with..
Our Say Our Way Toolkit
We’ve just finished a great project on helping to engage young tenants in their communities called Our Say Our Way project. The toolkit helps social landlords with practical advice and guidance to ensure that young people on their estates have a voice in their communities, drawn from visiting landlords across England. Our Say Our Way is led by Peabody and sponsored by the Big Lottery Fund.
You can see the toolkit here: www.oursay-ourway.co.uk/tool-kit.htm		  Smart School Councils Community
Every1Counts: Participatory Budgeting in Schools
With our partners from the Participatory Budgeting (PB) Unit and the Citizenship Foundation we’ve started a national campaign to get schools using participatory budgeting to really give weight to their student voice.We’re asking schools to make a pledge to give it a go with just 1% of their (non-staffing) budget. Find out more at: www.every1counts.org.uk		 Every 1 Counts logo
Smart School Councils Community
We’re working hard on this community for students and teachers that want to improve their school councils, and to make them smarter. It’s led by ten founding schools who have AMAZING school councils/student voice. Over the last year, we’ve been running events and training sessions with teachers and students who want to share their ideas and resources and been travelling internationally to find ideas across Europe too. This community will be free to join, so head over to www.smartschoolcouncils.org.uk to find out more.		 Smart School Councils Community
Pupil Voice National Best Practice Research
We worked on the latest research into student voice for the Children’s Commissioner of England. After in-depth research in 16 English schools, the findings look at the best practice that’s out there, and the values, practices and principles that underpin it. A great project to be involved in.Take a look at the ‘how to’ guide to find out about the results.		 Department for Education logo
Social Enterprise for sustainable change
We helped Changemakers with a really cool social enterprise project. They are developing a toolkit which helps young people to set up as social enterprises, and develop important skills around citizenship, enterprise and empowerment. Read more about Changemakers by clicking the logo.
Changemakers logo
Parliament’s Education Service
Parliament’s Education Service asked us to help them with for the fourth year running with their amazing project – the Speaker’s School Council Awards. The Awards are a new national initiative to celebrate the achievements of school councils across the UK. We helped the project to include over 2,500 schools and designed the criteria for the Awards working with young people. You can find out more about Speaker’s School Council Awards at the website: www.speakersschoolcouncil.org		 Parliament Education Service logo
School council support with Brent
We’re working in partnership with the London Borough of Brent to deliver ongoing support to their school councils. It’s great to work with a local authority to train – they know local schools well, and can provide on the ground support in between training sessions. If you’re a Brent school, get in touch to hear more.		 Brent Council Logo
Democratic Life
We’re part of an important campaign to make sure that Citizenship Education remains part of the national curriculum. Along with the likes of Amnesty International, Citizenship Foundation, Changemakers and the British Youth Council, we’re a governing member. Very exciting to be working alongside great organisations – see www.democraticlife.org.uk for more info.		 Democratic Life logo
Citizenship CPD Module
The Association of Citizenship Teaching (ACT) asked us to write some CPD (continuing professional development) materials for LA staff to deliver to teachers in their areas. This is just the kind of project we love to do because it extends the reach of people we can help greatly. This is available to members of ACT.		 Association for Citizenship Teaching logo
Teaching Leaders
As part of the amazing Teaching Leaders programme, which develops middle leaders in urban schools, we’ve been helping to train participants on genuine student voice and school councils. These guys are a talented bunch, so it’s always lots of fun.		 Teaching Leaders logo
Whole Education
We’re supporting Whole Education, which is a campaign set up by the RSA to help young people to get a well-rounded education that they can relate to. It emphasises practical and important skills like communication and teamwork, and resilience and empathy. Very much in tune with out thinking at involver. Find out more at www.wholeeducation.org/		 Whole Education logo
Promoting Pupil Well-being in the 21st Century School
We like to work with other organisations in the field. In this case, by running a workshop at NCB’s major national conference on pupil well-being. We looked at creative ways of involving your whole school community through pupil voice.		 National Children's Bureau logo
Working as a community – The Golden Co-Op
We also work with other organisations who want to strengthen the role of young people in their work. In this case, helping the Golden Co-op and the young people they work with to set ground rules for how they’re going to work together. The Golden Co-Op is a youth-led urban honey co-operative in the heart of Hackney, East London. They aim to empower young people at risk of exclusion with the skills to develop a sustainable, environmentally focused social enterprise.		 The Golden Co-op logo
Tower Hamlets School Council Conference
We enjoy working with local authorities to deliver great training sessions or conferences. To coincide with Local Democracy Week, Tower Hamlets put on a school council conference where student representatives of every secondary school in the area will help create a School Council Charter, laying out what standards their school councils should be aiming for, and how the council should work with schools in the area. We helped to plan this event – and then facilitated the Charter-writing sessions with young people and offering CPD to teachers.		 LB Tower Hamlets logo
It’s your Choice Use Your Voice – Slovakia
As well as helping schools at local authorities and schools at home, we also work internationally. We’re working with the Kosice region of Slovakia to help evaluate, and take forward the learning, of an international EU-funded project. This will lead to exciting partnerships in 2010, which we’re looking forward to.		 RCM logo
Sharing Citizenship Teacher Training – Centre for Democratic Education (Czech Republic)
The Centre for Democratic Education is a Czech charity working to embed citizenship and school councils into the Czech education system. We’ve collaborated with CEDU on a number of projects in the UK and Czech Republic, and we love them! Read more about our work together here.		 Centre for Democratic Education logo