This morning I read an interesting story about how the school council at a Kent school are publicly disagreeing with a recent Ofsted judgement on their school.

School defends low Ofsted grade – www.thisiskent.co.uk

It’s fantastic to see students having pride in their school and defending it in this way and it demonstrates some of the benefits of student voice: it develops a sense of ownership and responsibility for the school and provides a very important perspective on how the school is working.

I’d be very interested to know though whether they would have received the same support in publicising their views if the situation had been reversed. If the school had received a positive report, but the students’ experience is negative, what would have happened?

This article raises a couple of questions:

• What weight is put on each of these two views: that of Ofsted and of the students?
• Do you use student voice to support and challenge what is going on in your school?