The screen at the top of the photo was used to display images of the topics being discussed when appropriate, the rest of the time the minutes were displayed there as they were typed up.
Today we’re sitting in Masarova School in Brno, the Czech Republic’s second city. Again we’ve been lucky to witness an excellent school council meeting, albeit one that was very different to the one we saw yesterday.
This meeting was more formal, not least in the room layout,but there was still a good deal of respect and understanding between the pupils. Again, the range of issues they covered was impressive and would ring bells for UK school councils: communication with the whole school, school dinners, fundraising, the school council’s budget and how to get more teachers involved with the school council.
There were a few things that stood out to us as useful ideas that other school councils could use:
Have the minutes displayed as they are being typed. This allows everyone to see that they are being recorded accurately and see that an action plan has been agreed – if you use action-focused minutes.
The three chairpeople supported one another well and ensured that virtually everyone (22 out of 24 school councillors) contributed during the meeting.
Have people in supporting roles. There were three chairs and two secretaries. One person took the lead as each but the others helped out and ensured that everyone was seen and all notes were taken down.
Don’t just choose the oldest students to chair. In this school the three chairs seemed to be some of the youngest people in the meeting, but they were enthusiastic and did an excellent job of moving the discussions along.
Have large name badges for everyone in the room. All teachers and students had these and it meant the secretaries could easily record who was doing what.
Print out the minutes at the end of the meeting to give to everyone so they know what was discussed and what their action points are.
The two secretaries typed up the minutes as the meeting was going and they were projected on to a screen that everyone could see. At the end of the meeting they printed out the minutes for all the school councillors.
The noticeboard at the front entrance, showing what the school council is working on and what it has achieved.
Our first stop, at Krnov School, was a real treat. The first thing we saw when we came through the front door was a ‘School Parliament’ (school council) noticeboard laying out what the Parliament is working on now and what it has done recently. As we explored later we saw there were two more noticeboards for the Parliament, one outside the headteacher’s office and the other outside the music room where they meet. The locations of the these boards makes a clear statement about the status of the Parliament in the school. They have named their school council ‘Heart of the School’, which has the same connotations in Czech as it does in English.
The school council meeting we got to see was for the upper school (students aged 11-15). The school has students from age 6-15 and they split their school council in two, one for the lower school and one for the upper school. The meeting we saw was really impressive: decisions were made, action was decided upon and fun was had. I’ll try to give you a sense of what this looked like and how it was achieved.
The upper school council with their logo in the background.
The council arrived and seated themselves in a circle sitting on drums/stools students had decorated. One of the older students ran through each of the classes to check that all the representatives were there.
The chair, another of the older students, checked up that the actions agreed at the last meeting had been completed and they moved on to the first discussion. This was about taking photos of the school council to display in the school and use on a Christmas card. After listening to a few points of view it was clear that there was general agreement so the chair moved to a vote. This was carried and the chair asked for a volunteer to ensure that the action was carried out.
All of the above happened in the first two minutes of the meeting. It seemed very informal, but incredibly effective. We were told by the students that the meeting was pretty typical and later by their teachers that these students are a fair cross-section of the school in terms of academic ability and interests. I’m still trying to work out what enabled them to work so well together.
Working in small teams with mixed ages.
After discussions about the school council website, plans for the play space outside the school the meeting came to a discussion about a new rewards system. At this point the school council co-ordinator, who had so far taken a back seat, took over. She split the meeting into mixed groups fo 4 or five and asked each group to come up with five ideas for why people should be rewarded by the school council. After a few minutes of discussion she paired up groups and asked them to get their two sets of five ideas down to five between them. The groups then announced their ideas and the chair wrote them up on the whiteboard, omitting any duplicates. Whilst this was happening the teacher handed each school councillor three stickers. They were to use these to vote between the options on the whiteboard. In this way a complex decision was taking democratically and quickly.
Voting on options
After this the teacher reminded the students of a game they had played at the previous few meetings. She told them they had ten minutes to plan how to complete it this time – they’d failed on their previous attempts. When the ten minutes was up – and the students had failed again – the teacher got them to reflect on their planning and the way they had worked together. They came up with some useful ideas which she helped them apply to their school council. The student’s comment that I liked the most was, “we did discuss it and made a plan, but we all just talked to our friends, we didn’t make a plan all together.”
The aim of the game was to get people from being in age order to alphabetical order without any of them stepping outside the lines.
It was clear that although they weren’t successful at completing the challenge those kinds of discussions and games had a real impact on how they were able to work together as a school council. It was a real honour to see them work.
This week Greg and I are out in the Czech Republic again, working with our friends and partners CEDU (English pages: http://cedu.cz/en). This time it’s a bit different though as rather than having teachers and headteachers come to us in Prague, we’re going on a tour of schools right across the Czech Republic.
We set off from Prague this afternoon; our first stop is in Krnow, then we go on to Brno, then Dobronín and end up in Dolní Žandov on Friday.
We’re really excited and we hope to learn a lot more about how student voice works in Czech schools. We’ll do a blog post each day to tell you about what we’ve learnt, so check back tomorrow.
We just received an email with an opportunity that you may find interesting:
TakingITGlobal for Educators (TIGed) is offering scholarships for our upcoming professional development e-course for educators: “Empowering Student Voice in Education”. This graduate-level, accredited course is designed to help educators understand the value of cultivating and engaging student voice both inside and outside the classroom. Course material draws on the experiences of educators who have incorporated student voice in their teaching practice and designed experiences and projects that empower students to have an equal say in the decision-making processes that shape their education. Educators will critically examine the current state of student voice in their educational contexts, work towards designing a project that enables and enhances student voice and create meaningful connections with their peers worldwide. Microsoft’s Give for Youth campaign has sponsored 20 scholarships for this e-course. For scheduling and more information about TIGed’s e-courses, visit tigurl.org/ecourses. To be considered for this opportunity, please take a few minutes to fill out this survey.
Not having been part of the course, we can’t say anything about how good it will be, but we’d be very interested to find out what it’s like from anyone who takes up this opportunity.
At an event I attended last week the chair of Boris Johnson’s Education Inquiry, Dr Tony Sewell, repeated the claim that schools are anti-competition. This idea has become received wisdom amongst Tory politicians and supporters. It seems to come from a belief that the left have created a state education system where “all must have prizes”, to quote our Prime Minister. This just doesn’t ring true for me; I visit a lot of schools and I can’t think of a single one that doesn’t have at least some of these:
Sports teams competing against other schools
Boards celebrating successful students
Boards with competitions between classes, houses or year groups
Prize-giving in assemblies for sporting and academic achievement, attendance and punctuality
Challenges in class for who can score highest, finish first, show the best understanding/depth/creativity
I would challenge anyone who claims that schools are anti-competition to show me a school that actually doesn’t use and encourage competition in these ways. I would be surprised to see even one, let alone the nation-wide conspiracy to undermine competition that is implied by David Cameron, Melanie Phillips, Toby Young and Boris Johnson.
Since schools do celebrate success and use competition in a variety of ways, what is it exactly that Dr Sewell et al are looking for? If it’s not about those at the top, who are celebrated, it must be about those at the bottom. Their issue must be that schools use the celebration of success as a carrot, but don’t use humiliation as a stick. Those who call schools anti-competitive should be clear and honest about what they mean, they should say loud and proud: we need more humiliation in schools.
Once they have been clear and honest about this I would like them to describe what that should look like in a classroom. People sitting in order of their last test score? The worst results being read out in assembly? Boards displaying the pictures of those who are failing, alongside those who succeed? Dunces caps? More children crying, more children cracking under the pressure?
The key issue for school councils is how they involve the whole student body. Not just once a year when representatives are voted on, but on an on-going basis, throughout the year.
For me the core of the answer is in class meetings. Through these every student in the school can be listened to, given a chance to speak and become involved. Not all will want to, and many won’t very often, but the fact that it happens regularly, for everyone makes a huge difference. It is clear that the school (and the school council) are there for you when you need it, and is actively trying to involve you.
Transferring responsibility in secondaries
In secondary schools having these meetings is often seen to be harder than in primaries. The timetable is more prescribed, students move around and swap groups during the day, and so on. Last week when this issue arose at a training session I asked about the class meetings in the teacher’s school. He said that they had got rid of them because they couldn’t rely on the 72 form tutors to run them and pass on the messages. I’ve heard this from so many schools and it makes me sad to think about what this says to the students about how much their form tutors value their opinions. It raises questions of management too, but we’ll leave that to another time.
To me it seems that this is a problem that could be avoided. This shouldn’t be the teachers’ responsibility, it should be the class reps’. They should each have a simple page to assist them to run a class meeting. It lists decisions made, questions to be asked and a space for raising new issues. This makes sure that every class in the school is involved in the discussions of the school council. All the teacher needs to do is ensure that every other Friday 15 minutes of form time is given over to the class rep (as stated in the school council policy).
So I suggested this to the delegates at the training event. They liked the idea and of course asked whether I had a template for this. “Of course,” I white-lied, “I’ll send it out to you all next week.” So this morning I transferred that template from my head to the computer.
Free template
You can download a PDF or a Word version below. There are instructions for the class rep on the sheet itself. Instructions on how to fill it out are at the bottom of this page.
I would suggest you take the Word version and then you can type directly in to it. This is how it needs to be filled out (I say ‘school council’ below but it could be any meeting that is being reported back from, such as a year or house council):
In Section 1 you should put the decisions that were taken at the school council. Keep it succinct but clear, as the rep will just read this section out.
You should just be able to copy the ‘Issue’ from your minutes.
The ‘Action/Decision’ should also be from your minutes, so wherever possible it should be an action: WHO is going to do WHAT by WHEN.
The ‘Reason’ is where you can add some explanation. For example, ‘There was general agreement on this from across the school’; ‘There isn’t the money to do this at this time’
In Section 2 you should write the question that the school council wants to ask the whole school. Make the question clear and simple, so you are sure everyone across the school understands it as written.
Depending on the question, you may find it useful to add some options for classes to select from.
You should leave section 3 blank, this is where ideas from the classes are written down.
You then need a system for collecting and collating these sheets. It could be that they are all handed in to the office straight after form time to be collected by the school council secretary later.
