Our current and major projects

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:
to get involved!

Project…	Working with..
Pupil Voice National Best Practice Research We’ve been carrying out some research for the Government (via the Specialist Schools and Academies Trust) into best practice in pupil voice amongst primary and secondary schools and LAs. There are loads of great things that we’ve been seeing and all kinds of learning we’re getting from it. We’ll be publishing this research soon and we’re quite excited about it.
Social Enterprise Project We’re helping 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. We’re still at an early age in the pilot, and will be keeping you posted on our blog.
Parliament Education Service Parliament’s Education Service have asked us to help them with their amazing new project – the Speaker’s School Council Awards. The Awards are a new national initiative to celebrate the achievements of school councils across the UK. The project was launched on 24 February, and as well as helping them to develop the criteria for the Award, we’ve designed and built a website to manage the entry process. Visit www.speakersschoolcouncil.org
Citizenship CPD Module The Association of Citizenship Teaching (ACT) have 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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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 hosted two of their lovely staff in February 2010, giving them experience in school councils and citizenship in the UK. We looked at training, what resources are provided (and which are missing) and the support that school councils and citizenship gets. This was funded by the EU.