Yesterday Greg and I went to Ashley School in Widnes to do some testing for a big project we’re doing with the Parliament Education Service (PES).
It’s such a great school to visit because they really seem to get the links between the school council, Citizenship and the happiness of everyone in the school.
How do they do this:
- Ensure everyone who wants to participate can. There are elected councils but also groups people can volunteer for.
- There are groups that reflect a variety of interests to engage different students, to name just a few: Sports, Eco, Anne Frank (community and human rights).
- All staff take responsibility and get involved with groups and committees that interest them: the PE teacher runs the Sports Committee, the Science teacher runs the Eco group, etc.
- The school council is structured with a purpose, they decided to reflect the Houses of Parliament and use this as a teaching tool to help students understand the wider political system.
- Pride of place is given to the pupils’ various councils and groups. They have their own committee room and displays in the reception area.
- The school council is designed to be completely inclusive. Although there are no pupils with physical disabilities as Ashley School their committee room is designed to be accessible and usable by all, it includes a whole range of assistive technologies. There is even a CCTV system to meetings can be viewed all over the school.
Anyway, here’s a little video of their council chamber. Obviously we couldn’t get the kids in because of child safety issues, but you get the idea.
This is no new thing to Ashley School, they’ve been doing this work for years as this great article in the Guardian testifies: Friends, pupils, citizens