Category: involver blog

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involver blog

Slovakia Day 1

A street in Kosice, thanks to http://www.flickr.com/photos/anteros/2337095972/

A street in Kosice

Had a great day 1 at the Slovakia ‘It’s your choice, use your voice’ conference.

Very interesting people from here, as well as Italy. Greece arrives tonight.

Also interesting to discuss the comparisons in progress with student voice.

In the UK, the idea behind student voice is pretty much considered a good one (just not a lot of people do it well), whereas in Slovakia the whole idea of genuine representative democracy is much newer, and far less popular. There really are  a whole different set of challenges.

Anyway, due to a long day, some lovely home made wine, I’ve not got much more to offer. Better prep my speech for tomorrow, and sign off.

More updates to come….

Greg

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involver blog Resources

Some cool tools from the BBC

Choose from four different visual tools on the BBC's Pinball site
Choose from four different visual tools on the BBC's Pinball site

A teacher on Twitter (@dannynic) pointed this out today:

bbc.co.uk/pinball

It’s four great little tools for decision-making and coming up with creative ideas:

  • Firing out ideas
  • Making quick decisions
  • Mixing up ideas
  • Playing with images

I just had a little play with them and it seems to me they could be great tools to use in your school council meeting or action group, especially if you’ve got an interactive whiteboard.

Have a go!

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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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Citizenship involver blog

Should we run a school?

A couple of days ago on Twitter I noticed a couple of tweets by Fiona Blacke, the Chief Exec of the NYA (National Youth Agency) that really quite excited me:

  • @edballsmp Great to hear charities can now sponsor academies. More info to follow??
  • if youth charities can run schools can we expect these will have pupil voice and empowerment at the centre of the way they run? Exciting!

    • Incredibly exciting, I thought. The chance to put into practice what we preach. Rather than looking down from our pulpits on the pupils and teachers we want to influence, we could actaully be part of running a school.  I can’t think that there would be a better way to advance our thinking on the real power and possibilities of pupil voice . It would also provide a great example to other schools, not to mention the possibilities it would provide to the pupils in such a school.

    Now, as you probably know, involver’s not exactly the most established organisation yet, so I felt it was a bit flippant for me to suggest that we run a school, but I did anyway, kind of.  Well actually I posted a question on Twitter to a few other organisations that I thought might be interested and Michael Grimes at the Citizenship Foundation picked up on this and wrote a blog post about it to get the discussion going. I’m continuing it here, so please comment on either blog with your thoughts.

    For me it just seems that this does need to be considered. Leadership by example is the only real leadership. Who’s with me?

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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