Category: involver blog

The NASUWT is concerned by increasing reports that student voice activities are being abused by some schools and resulting in practices which privilege pupils in a way which is undermining, disempowering and deprofessionalising teachers. These activities include using pupils to observe teachers teaching, involving pupils in the recruitment of staff, including on interview panels, and pupil questionnaires which are for management rather than educational purposes.

This is the opening line to an email sent out to the members of ‘the largest UK-wide teachers’ union’, the NASUWT, this week (one of whom sent it on to me).  Just a couple of the things that are troubling about this letter and the assumptions it makes:

• Every time a teacher teaches, pupils observe them and pass judgement, that’s what happens in lessons. The judgement is communicated through engagement or disengagement. Wouldn’t it be better to capture this experience in a structured, focussed way so that teachers could use it for their professional development and improve student learning? Isn’t it clear that giving students a greater understanding of the teaching process improves learning, engagement and attainment (the General Teaching Council definitely thinks so, based on it’s research carried out by Cambridge University:
  Improving pupil learning through enhancing participation)
• If this concern is coming from “increased reports”, why send out a letter saying, “The Union urgently needs case studies of teachers’ experiences of the abuse of student voice in schools”? Why not just use all the reports that are giving rise to concern?

One thing that I find particularly concerning is the timing of this letter and what this implies about its use. Responses need to be in by the end of the week, presumably so they can be used for a response to the DCSF’s consultation on ‘Considering pupils views’, which is on governors’ new duties regarding pupil voice. Now it’s right and proper that the NASUWT responds to this consultation, it wouldn’t be serving its members if it didn’t, but the things it’s asking for don’t relate to the questions being asked, which are:

1. Do you feel it is appropriate for schools to invite and consider pupils’ views before revising equality policies or schemes in the area of race, disability and gender equality?
2. Do you feel it is appropriate for schools to invite and consider pupils’ views before making changes to the times of school sessions?
3. Do you feel it is appropriate for schools to invite and consider pupils’ views before agreeing their curriculum policy?

Nothing to do with lesson observations, interview panels and the like.  So is the union intending to launch a broadside on pupil voice generally to get in the way of allowing pupils to have more of a say in how their school is run? (The letter asks for people who are willing to be interviewed by the media.)

I really hope they would take a more measured approach, but this hasn’t been the NASUWT’s tactic so far with regards to student voice.  Chris Keates has consistently used the argument that because something is being done poorly in a few schools it should be stopped everywhere.  It’s exactly this kind of thinking that has paralysed so many schools with regards to school trips: poor practice and accidents can’t be completely prevented so we’re better off just not doing any, irrespective of the impact this may have on the quality of students’ experience and learning.

So if you’re an NASUWT member who is aware of the benefits of student voice, why not email your union (judy.stokes@mail.nasuwt.org.uk – she’s collecting the case studies) and see whether they’re willing to represent your views?