A couple of days ago on Twitter I noticed a couple of tweets by Fiona Blacke, the Chief Exec of the NYA (National Youth Agency) that really quite excited me:
@edballsmp Great to hear charities can now sponsor academies. More info to follow?? if youth charities can run schools can we expect these will have pupil voice and empowerment at the centre of the way they run? Exciting!
Incredibly exciting, I thought. The chance to put into practice what we preach. Rather than looking down from our pulpits on the pupils and teachers we want to influence, we could actaully be part of running a school. I can’t think that there would be a better way to advance our thinking on the real power and possibilities of pupil voice . It would also provide a great example to other schools, not to mention the possibilities it would provide to the pupils in such a school.
Now, as you probably know, involver’s not exactly the most established organisation yet, so I felt it was a bit flippant for me to suggest that we run a school, but I did anyway, kind of. Well actually I posted a question on Twitter to a few other organisations that I thought might be interested and Michael Grimes at the Citizenship Foundation picked up on this and wrote a blog post about it to get the discussion going. I’m continuing it here, so please comment on either blog with your thoughts.
For me it just seems that this does need to be considered. Leadership by example is the only real leadership. Who’s with me?