Category: SchoolCouncilsUK-archive

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SchoolCouncilsUK-archive

The anti-school council

I recently went to a pupil voice conference, with a variety of workshops run by school council members in the area. I was surprised by one school, who presented their version of pupil voice that wasn’t a school council. The workshop started with a dramatic statement by the head of the primary school stating that their school didn’t have a council because they wanted “to involve all the school.”  I was intrigued… Has she not heard of class councils, or year councils?!  The students then went to on to explain (in a speech most definitely written by the headmistress)  how they approach student voice, wait for it, this is very innovative…… The headmistress and deputy head go to each class once a week and ask if they have any problems and there is also a suggestion box which if you submit your problem, you get a cosy one-to-one with the head to discuss the issue.

It really does seem to hark back to the school dark ages, and shows us that pupil voice still is very neglected in many schools. This school’s attitude really seemed to be: who needs pupil voice when the headmistress can run the whole shebang and not have those pesky pupils putting their ideas across and and getting in the teachers’ way of organising the school.

Vicky

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SchoolCouncilsUK-archive

‘YOUth citizenship: inside and out’

Yesterday, Learning and Teaching Scotland’s Young People’s Advisory Group announced it’s first national conference ‘YOUth citizenship: inside and out‘.

The event has already sparked off much interest from all over Scotland. The idea of the day is to explore citizenship in order to make more people understand its importance and to celebrate acheivements that have been made theough citizenship.

If you would like to find out more about this event of the work of the Young People’s Advisory Group please visit their website.

Daisy

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SchoolCouncilsUK-archive

Benefits of being on a school council

The Independent Schools Council this week reported that their research has shown that extra-curricular activities improve academic performance.

Whilst school councils are not necessarily an extra-curricular activity the research from isc examined how “many studies have shown that a rounded education comes from a combination of good academic grounding coupled with wider experiences outside of the classroom.” We believe that school councils provide many worthwhile experiences both in and outside the classroom which help towards a rounded education.

Furthermore, it was shown that academic success was not the only benefit of being involved with the wider school community. Pupils that are involved in more activities, such as school councils, are likely to have more friends and receive greater recognition from their peers. In addition it was shown that these students also coped better with both social and psychological adjustments.

Daisy

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SchoolCouncilsUK-archive

Can school councils represent everyone in a large school?

I am currently reading a paper that has been published by the Human Scales School Project, which is a partnership between Human Scale Education and the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation. The idea behind Human Scale Education is to create small scale learning communities where children and young people are known and valued as individuals.

The report looked into how Stantonbury Campus, a school with 2,600 pupils, and how it manages to achieve human scale thinking in such a large school. Stantonbury Campus has divided their school into five ‘halls’ each containing around 500 pupils. The purpose of these halls is to act as mini-schools with their own individual head teacher and teaching staff.

The report is interesting in that one of the final recommendations for good practice is “Student voice involving students in the learning arrangements and organization of the school.” The way in which Stantonbury achieves this is for each hall to have their own elected school council who have control of a budget and are involved in all aspects of their hall.

We recognize that sometimes in a large school the school council does not represent all pupils, do you think by having separate school councils for different pupils will mean that the whole school is represented? Or do you think that this will mean the school will become segregated? Is there a better way of involving the whole school community in the decisions made by the school council?

Daisy

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Ashden Awards

On Wednesday, 10th June, I went to a conference hosted by the Ashden Awards  at the Imperial College, London. The  Ashden Awards for sustainable energy are to reward those making advances in local solutions to climate change. The purpose of the day was to give the Ashden Awards finalists the opportunity to talk about their achievements and successes.

I was at the conference primarily in order to meet with Ashley Primary School whose pupils were remarkable in both their enthusiasm and bravery in addressing so many people. First we viewed a short film outlining how following an expedition to the Antarctic Richard Dunne, headteacher, was inspired to create a sustainable energy school. Then four pupils from Ashley Primary, Aaron, Megan, Joshua and Ellie, spoke about how they have accomplished reducing their use of electricity throughout the whole school by more than half in the last year.

It was a really enjoyable day and it was obvious from listening to the children that they really knew what they were talking about and loved being involved with the project. The buzz that was created throughout the audience proves what an exciting and fundamental change that has been started by Ashley School. Having met with Richard Dunne there is no doubt in my mind that the success is largely due to his enthusiasm and dedication and I only hope that the inspiration he evokes can be carried forward to schools nationwide.

Daisy

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Does your school stick to the rules too much?

I read this article about Dundee City Council banning a primary school having a cake sale due to health and safety and couldn’t believe it.

Read the story here

We have also just put a poll on our website asking you what you think the best ways to raise money are, a cake sale is one of the options. This to me begs the question are you prevented from acheiveing things on your school council, or in your school in general due to silly rules?

Daisy