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involver blog

Interning in a small not-for-profit

CSDohertyIn January I was lucky to be offered an internship with involver, and their partner the Smart School Councils Community. Having now come to the end of the placement, I wanted to write a quick reflection on the experience to explain a little about the work I was doing and hopefully offer some help to any of my fellow graduates looking for internships.

Why involver?

involver is an organisation that works with schools to help promote a culture of inclusive democracy, in which the students take an active role in shaping their school policy. By encouraging them to represent themselves and their peers to make changes and tackle problems that they themselves identify, students develop the knowledge, skills and experience they need to make their school a better learning environment. The effects don’t end in school though; by engaging in democratic processes at school students will be in a position to become informed and active citizens outside of education

While the majority of schools have some kind of student council and citizenship education is (and shall thankfully remain) a statutory part the national curriculum, these outlets for student voice are often tokenistic. They offer no real power to the students, no real knowledge of how to approach authority with their ideas and concerns. As a result, a child can go through their entire school life without ever feeling remotely in control of the process of their education. Can this system encourage an attitude of active citizenship in students? I humbly suggest that it can not.

The mission of involver is to change this approach and empower children while they are at school. This is a mission I firmly support, which made it easy to really engage with their work. This helped make the placement not only an exercise in gaining practical skills and improving my employability, but a genuinely eye-opening experience in education policy and wider democracy.

Be more than free labour

I graduated last year and I often hear from fellow graduates who share horror stories of internships that take everything and give nothing, essentially using desperate graduates as free labour. I couldn’t say that they should be more selective in where they intern, it’s simply not the situation graduates today find themselves. But I would suggest applying at small charities or not-for-profit organisations. They may not be as recognisable as larger private companies, and it may be more difficult to find somewhere offering paid internships, but it is more likely that your time and effort will be valued and in return you will be able to gain far more experience and a broader range of skills from the placement.

At involver I had freedom to contribute in any way I felt would be useful experience for me or beneficial to the organisation, and as such I’ve gained skills in areas I would not have even considered before starting the internship. I feel incredibly lucky to have been given a place here, and if you’re a graduate in the same position as I was three months ago, I hope you can find somewhere that will offer you the same opportunities as I found.

Finally, I would like to say thanks to Asher and Greg at involver. It was great working with you, and I wish you every success with involver and the Smart School Councils Community.

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involver blog

Involving pupils in headteacher recruitment

When Asher’s school was choosing a new headteacher it was essential to involve pupils in the process.

It should be redundant to say that pupils are central to everything we do in school and yet we often make some of the most important decisions without listening to them at all. When we were choosing our new headteacher it seemed essential to us that we should involve pupils in that process. We needed a headteacher who could communicate with children as well as with adults and was respected by the pupils as much as by parents and colleagues. We were very keen therefore to ensure that people from all parts of our school community were involved; so on the appointment panel we had parent, community, LA and staff governors. One voice was obviously still missing though, that of the pupils. It would not have been appropriate to have pupils on the panel making the final decision, but we wanted them to play a meaningful part in the process. I volunteered to work with the school council to prepare them and to be their link to the appointment panel.

Pupils from Welbourne
Pupils from Welbourne helping in our office.
At the time the NASUWT was making a lot of fuss about pupil involvement in appointments and other pupil voice issues. It seemed to me that the cases they referred to just showed bad practice in appointment processes, they did not undermine the need for pupils’ voices to be heard in that process. I was keen to show that with appropriate preparation this would be a useful, interesting and educational experience for the pupils and the appointment panel.

At all stages the appointment panel was clear with candidates, the governing body and pupils about what the process would be and ultimately who would make the decision: that responsibility lay firmly with the appointment panel.  Each of the candidates would give an assembly, meet with the school council and have a formal interview. What weight was given to these elements was decided by the appointment panel.

A couple of weeks before the interviews I met with the older members of the school council (from Y3 to Y6) and our headteacher. We did some work on the role of the headteacher, confidentiality, the pupils’ priorities for a new head and what questions they could ask to find if someone fit the bill.

The questions they came up with were brilliantly incisive and varied, ranging from, “what would someone have to do to get sent home” to, “what does bravery mean to you”. They practiced these questions on the headteacher and we discussed his answers.

On the day of the interviews each pupil had a sheet on which were the nine questions they had come up with to ask each candidate and a space to mark each answer and make comments. They also had all the attributes we had discussed (not just those voted top) written around their sheets for them to circle if they thought a candidate showed one of them.

The school council met each candidate individually, asked all of them the same questions and gave the candidates time to ask them questions too. After each one I collated the school council’s marks and got each school councillor to give some feedback on what they thought about the candidate, giving reasons. I noted these down to hand to the appointment panel later.

At the end of the day I reported back the data and views from the school council to the appointment panel. Having this all written down I hope helped me to do this faithfully and without favour. As I wasn’t on the appointment panel I don’t know what influence these views had on them, but they definitely surprised and impressed me and challenged some of my perceptions.

It also made a clear statement to the candidates that the governing body put pupils at the heart of our school and so helped us to recruit a fantastic headteacher who does too.

Further info

A good process for pupil involvement in staff appointments:
http://involver.org.uk/2010/04/pupil-interview-panels-getting-it-right/

Questions pupils ask during staff appointments:
http://involver.org.uk/2011/08/school-council-interview-questions/


Asher is vice-chair of governors at Welbourne Primary School in Haringey and a member of the Haringey Governors Association. This article was originally published in the March/April 2013 edition of Governing Matters (Access to NGA Members only).

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involver blog

Involver Internship

By way of an introduction, my name is Cameron and I recently graduated from a Journalism & Media BA. I am very lucky to have been given the opportunity to work with Asher and Greg here at Involver while developing the new Smart School Councils site, so you can
expect to read more from me over the coming weeks.

From my own experience at school, college and university, it has become apparent that the student voice is an important aspect of any educational institution that is too often neglected. When there are channels in place for students to have an input into how their school works, it seems that there is usually no real power to make a change put into their hands. This often leaves student councils and other democratic processes to the few students who have developed a passion for the political and the confidence to challenge their teachers, leaving the majority of students who have their own concerns and ideas without any real ability to be heard.

At Involver, we aim to work with students and teachers to put in place the resources and training necessary to give everyone the chance to get involved helping to improve their school. This helps schools develop a community spirit and collaborative ethos for the benefit of staff and pupils alike, while also teaching young people about responsibility and democracy to prepare them for life after education.

It’s an ideology I am proud to support, and I look forward to contributing to and learning from the Involver team while we produce content for the Smart School Council site. I’m also hoping to hear from students and teachers who are interested in what we do here or have their own ideas about democracy in schools, so please feel free to email or get in touch on the forums.

We are happy to answer any questions you may have about what we do and why we do it.

 

Cameron Scott Doherty.

Email: info@involver.org.uk ¦ Portfolio: www.csdoherty.wordpress.com