Author: Greg

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involver blog

Where we’re at..

So having spent the last few weeks meeting people, working hard, and running around using all my oyster card money, Asher has pulled together the various projects that we’re working on here – www.involver.org.uk/projects. A good list, and we’re really pleased with our progress so far.

All this, while also trying to develop the website (Asher) and build the business plan (me). And helping schools and local authorities with their pupil voice and school councils. Tiring work, and long hours! I really feel like we need:

Unlikely.

Anyway. The business plan is very important – we have to make sure that all these projects (present and future) fit into a wider picture. We also – for ourselves – need to be clear about how involver should run, and where the money is going to come from.

We’re going to be working with primary and secondary pupils to put the business plan together – we want young people to be involved in how the organisation looks at the start.

So this is what we’re at…. get in touch if you’d like to get involved!

Greg

PS. What would you do with an extra hour in the day?

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involver blog

Case studies, Slovakia, and next steps

Good news 1:

Hard work (and many late nights) over the last week has meant that we are pretty much done with the pupil voice case studies that we are writing for the SSAT/DCSF. The schools and LAs that took part (thanks!) are receiving them to sign them off. Be good to get it all wrapped up soon, and we hope it will be helpful to schools./LAs.

Good news 2:

At the start of October, we’ve been invited to Slovakia to take part in a three-day meeting about pupil voice in Europe.

They have been working on a school council project called ‘It’s your choice, use your voice’, and want to hear more about how things are approached in the UK. There’s potential for future cooperation too. Should be a great experience, and lots of fun – full blog to come – take a look at http://www.rcm.sk/en/news.

Also had interesting meetings with NCB, Send for it/Portland (the company who have bought School Councils UK) and our friend Jem (http://twitter.com/_jemima) on Search Engine Optimisation stuff. 95% of this went over my head but in a stroke of luck, Asher is a web geek, and he managed to follow things.

In other news, working at home in the kitchen is difficult – I keep eating EVERYTHING.

Hope all is good.

Greg

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involver blog

Teacher survey – seeking your views!

Hello all,

If you’re a teacher, we’d love to get your views on the type of pupil voice support you need in your school. Click the link below, it should just take a couple of minutes:

http://involver.org.uk/staffsurvey1

We’re in the process of creating one for young people, will blog when it’s up.

Asher’s also been working on a new search facility @ http://involver.org.uk/links. You can search across all the major participation sites from one place – useful!

Thanks, and hope the first proper week back at school is going well :)

Greg

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involver blog

Taglines!

So today we’ve been thinking about taglines for involver.

Up until now, we’ve gone with ‘engage, impact, enjoy’, which I think is good, but most people have said that it doesn’t actually say what we do. Fair point, so we’re having a bit of a rethink….

Companies employ shiny PR companies to spend months, and thousands of pounds, on a single line of text in taglines. I guess it’s to get the words, and the feeling that those words create, right.  I wonder how much McDonalds spent to come up with those three words – ‘I’m lovin’ it!’.

Due to a lack of time, not to mention money, Asher and I have been working on ideas today. This is the list we’ve got so far:

  1. involver : we do whole-school pupil voice for fun
  2. involver : fun and effective whole-school pupil voice
  3. involver: helping schools with fun, sustainable and active pupil voice for all
  4. involver: helping schools with fun and effective whole-school pupil voice
  5. involver: helping schools to enjoy active and effective pupil voice for all
  6. involver: helping schools to enjoy effective whole-school pupil voice
  7. involver: beyond school councils
  8. involver: going beyond school councils
  9. involver: inspiring school councils and more
  10. involver: beyond pupil voice
  11. involver: fun, effective, whole-school pupil voice
  12. involver: smart school councils
  13. involver: inspiring fun and effective pupil voice for all
  14. involver: inspiring fun, effective pupil voice for all
  15. involver: activating pupil voice through school councils
  16. involver: inspiring pupil voice through school councils

Issues:

–   We want to focus on pupil voice because it is not prescriptive about the way schools should approach this. However, if we focus on that, then we lose the school councils niche. 95% of schools have them, and there’s a fair proportion that want to improve them. On the flip sude, if we focus on school councils too much, then it looks like we’re telling schools what to do, and not helping them to find a pupil voice model that works for them.

– My favourites are probably 3 or 13. Although with 3, there’s a worry that ‘helping’ isn’t strong enough. And with 13, is it clear enough? And do we need the ‘and’ compared to 14? So confused!

Either way, what do you all think? Leave a comment below.

It would be  great to hear from you on what you think is best – teachers feel free to ask your pupils. If you think of a completely new one, or a combination of the above, let us know! We’re trying to think short, snappy and clear – but they are always the hardest!

Greg :)

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involver blog

Greg’s off for the weekend

Hi all,

So the pupil voice case studies for Specialist Schools and Academies Trust are going well, and have been the focus this week. My computer died though, which didn’t help progress, and I lost my camera, which means that this blog post will feature no photographs.

Not long before the schools come back, so once they are done, it will be a race to get things up and running!

Anyway, off to Leeds festival this weekend. Can’t wait!

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involver blog

Lanzarote vs. case studies

So Asher’s away in Lanzarote in 35 degree heat with the family, and I’m spending Saturday writing up good pupil voice case studies.

Lanzarote
Lanzarote

It’s all good though, there’s a lot of very good practice out there that other schools could learn from and it’s good to be doing some concrete research on pupil voice that works. Trying to understand why is the next step, what are the ingredients in those schools which have enabled success.

Also been doing some work on the website. Thanks to Tim the Intern for his HTML help = legend.

Two useful sites to flag up – if you’re a Governor, David Sassoon produces a very informative website at http://www.governorsagenda.co.uk/.

Finally, if you’re in East London, there’s a great new project helping to empower young people who are at risk of exclusion through an urban beekeeping social enterprise. Very interesting. Take a look at http://www.thegoldenco-op.com/.

Have a great weekend. Greg :o)