Nice, huh?
Author: Greg
Asher and I had a great day at Parliament last week.
It was the Speaker’s School Council Awards Ceremony, that we’ve helped Parliament out on for the second year running. It’s been a brilliant project for us to work on.
The five winning schools came from across the UK to get a tour of Parliament, a sharing session in one of the committee rooms, and the awards ceremony with the Speaker. The winning schools are:
- Radyr Comprehensive School, Cardiff
- Shuttleworth College, Burnley
- Welling School, Kent
- New Earswick Primary School, York
- Rice Lane Infant and Nursery School, Liverpool
You can read more about them here.
Took a few terrible snaps (I’ll try to add some proper ones soon). Here’s Asher setting up in the Committee Room:
Here’s Asher having a go on the big chair:
Also lovely to see Millicent from ACT, Laura Hoke, Laura from Changemakers, and Andy from Citizenship Foundation there.
And here’s an exciting project that Parliament are working on. Worth a look.
Categories
Student voice-o-meter is born!
Happy friday everyone,
For the last few months, we’ve been working on an exciting new student voice/school council tool called the Student Voice-o-Meter. We’ve worked closely with two very talented people, Robert Johnson doing the amazing illustration, and Derek Winton pulling all the database and code stuff together. We’re extremely grateful for their help, ideas and talent in making the voice-o-meter come alive.
Put simply, it’s a student-led tool that helps schools to look at what’s good and bad about student voice or their school council. And how it can be improved. Here’s a wee preview:
Involver : Student voice-o-meter from bitsOfBobs on Vimeo.
The Student Voice-o-Meter is very young at the moment, and needs to work with some friendly schools to help him to grow. It’s really hungry and would love some data from your school.
That means we’re looking for three or four schools to give it a trial, get some support from us, and tell us what they think. When it’s up and running, we’ll give those schools free access to the tool. Forever.
So if you’re a teacher or a student, we’d love to hear from you.
Take a look at www.studentvoiceometer.org.uk and if you’re interested, then get in touch with us at info@involver.org.uk.
You can also follow the Student Voice-o-meter on twitter..
Make sure to follow Bits of Bobs on twitter too. You can hear all about his illustration and sandwich adventures.
Greg
Hey all,
Over on the join our team page, we’ve got details of an internship we’ve got available. Please give us a tweet, email or call if you’re interested!
Or you could read the details below:
Web Developer/Designer intern
We’re looking for a web developer/designer intern to help us create a new community website for the young people and teachers that we work with. You might be a student web designer, or a recent graduate, that’s keen to build their portfolio and work as part of an exciting start-up.
Info:
involver are an award-winning social enterprise that help schools, colleges and universities to give students more of a say in their education. We help young people to see that democracy, participation and ‘taking part’ isn’t just for the clever or most confident kids, or those who give the right answers. It’s for everyone.
We’re two guys that set up involver just over a year ago now. We’ve won several awards along the way, but most importantly have trained and supported loads of really great young people in schools across the UK and Europe. We’re currently working on high profile projects with Parliament and the Children’s Commissioner, and we’re working hard to take involver to the next level.
Why are involver looking for an intern?
We’re looking for a web developer/designer to help us create a new community website for the young people and teachers that we work with.
What kind of person are we looking for?
We’re looking for a student web designer, or recent graduate, that’s keen to build their portfolio and work as part of an exciting start-up. We’ve got a site spec and think that something like ELGG, Drupal, Ning, or Buddypress can do what we want. We’re just really keen for it not too look and feel really generic!
To do this you’d need great CSS and HTML skills, and a little bit of PHP probably wouldn’t go amiss. Our assumption is that we’d build something on an existing platform (as mentioned above) rather than building the site totally from scratch. So if you’re an energetic and passionate web design student, or a recent graduate, get in touch!
Where are the details?
We’re based in Shoreditch, East London. But don’t worry, we don’t have funny haircuts (except Greg). We’d pay your expenses and sort your lunch out.
In terms of timing, we’re keen to be flexible. You might want to do a day a week for a few months, or do something shorter and more intensive. Or you might like to work remotely. We also adhere to CIPD’s Internship Charter, which you can read here.
Are we nice people?
Yes. And we make nice coffee.
What would you get out of it?
Hopefully, you’d get a great website as part of your portfolio. You’ll meet some good contacts. We’d be really keen to introduce you to the people we work with; a mix of schools, charities, politicians, government people, private sector companies. And take you to events if you want to come.
If you do a good job, we’ll also promote you widely. And give you a great reference. Finally, we’re developing more and more online work, so there’s also a good chance we’d give you paid work in the future.
What do you do next?
- Get in touch with us at info@involver.org.uk.
- Or give us a buzz on 020 3411 3294.
- Or you might want to tweet us @doingdemocracy.
From there, we’ll organise an informal chat to decide if you’re what we’re looking for.
If you want a bit more information about what we do, take a look at www.involver.org.uk.
Or click on the link below for this information in PDF:
[download id=”227″]
This is part two of a blog on Little Heath’s Student Voice conference. You can read the first part here. This concentrated on the older students who were organising the conference, and the adults that supported them.
This second part will look at the experience of some of the younger pupils who are more recently involved with student voice. Let’s focus on student voice in learning since it’s one of the areas that the school does amazingly well. This centres around the STARs project – Students as Researchers.
The STARs (students as researchers) project is a key part of student voice in Little Heath. It’s designed to give the students an influence in their learning and school-life. Importantly, this isn’t based on whim, but research. Even more importantly, this research is student-led.
This first group looked at the types of homework that students liked most. Lots of students were complaining about their homework so they worked on a questionnaire to send out to pupils. The results were presented to Governors and SLT.
Here’s two year 9 students telling us about their STARs project. As opposed to the first group, this project focuses on classroom teaching. It looks at specific subjects: English, History and ICT in years 7 and 8. A crucial area to look at, and some very useful findings:
This group looked at the help that is available for students within the school. Here’s a member of the group talking us through the teacher questionnaire that they organised, and what will happen to their ideas:
Members of the STARs team can get involved year after year. These two members led a successful project last year, and are doing a first plan for their anti-bullying project this year:
Lots of the learning from the STARs project goes into a booklet which is given out to the school to publicise their work. Here’s the team in charge of making it:
Ongoing reflections on Homework:
Year 7 pupils (I think) talking us through their planner/homework diary/timetable.
They’re encouraged to reflect on what they’ve learnt and their homework, if there was too much or if they really enjoyed it. Teachers would then look at this. It’s a simple but good way to encourage reflection on learning and start a conversation with teachers.
Student voice in school planning:
Year 7 pupils on the Buildings and Environment group looking at how to improve this aspect of their school. They’re starting point is how they would make their school into the ‘dream school’ and they’re drawing a big map. They’re clearly getting a lot from approaching this in a visual way.
Key quote ‘it makes it come to life’
So that’s a taster of some of the great work being worked on by the younger pupils at Little Heath. The range of student voice work is really amazing, and if you’re interested, take a look at my original post from last year’s conference for a bit of analysis into why it works so well.
Well done to everyone involved :)
Greg
Another year, another amazing Student Voice Conference at Little Heath School in Reading.
I thought I’d write a blog that reflected on what we saw and learnt last year. It’s split into two parts because I took LOADS of videos.
So the ‘building blocks’ for success in Little Heath are still the same and still very apparent. Pupils feel open – and are supported by teachers and other pupils – to suggest ideas (good or bad!), there’s a variety of ways for students to get involved, and the support from staff is strong. In terms of staff support, the school has managed to build on what they provided last year.
Mr Linz (Student Voice Coordinator) is now expertly supported by Alison, the new Student Voice Assistant. Last year, Alison was a pupil at the school, but this year she’s a paid member of staff. It’s her job to support Mr Linz, and use her experience as a student to get lots of people involved and improve the school.
She’s very kindly writing a blog for us which you can read here and here. It’s really clear from how the students describe them that they make a great team and helps the school to build on the success that they’ve had. Well done!
As usual, I took some videos of some of the work that the school is doing. You’ll have to excuse my video skills.
First off, we have Bailey, a year 8 student who I’d talked to last year. This year Bailey was really clear on the role that the school’s strong student voice ethos had played in helping him and others. He’s got some great advice on helping shy pupils to get involved. This is something that sits at the heart of what we’re trying to do as an organisation, and it’s great to see Bailey describe this in such a powerful way:
Some great stuff from Jack in Year 11 telling us about the day, and the skills he learnt as a Student Voice Leader. He also stresses the role of a passionate student voice coordinator to support everyone:
Here’s Dalton, from Year 12. He’s got a rather fetching shirt, and is on the buildings committee and helps out on travel to and from school. Back in year 9, he was part of the selection panel to appoint a new head teacher. Key quote ‘being a student voice leader is not all plain-sailing‘. Here his thoughts below:
It’s also important to look at the role of other staff supporting student voice, here’s Ms. Broadhead and Mr. Naylor – a Teaching Assistant at the school – talking about their experience. As a NQT, Ms. Broadhead’s got some interesting reflections on the lip service that many schools pay to student voice:
Here’s Lucy and Daniela talking about the support that older pupils give to year sevens. It’s called the SMILE group, and shows how peer mentoring is important to the school:
Finally for part 1, here’s a short video of Tom working with a group of year 8s. We saw Tom last year explaining what was happening at the conference. I’m sure he won’t mind me saying he was a bit nervous! This year, he’s expertly leading a group on the importance of courage as a leader, and what that means. Great stuff!
In part two, I’ll be talking to more of the younger pupils at the school. Stay tuned and thanks again to Little Heath for inviting me along.
Greg