Category: SchoolCouncilsUK-archive

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How can school councils reduce violence in schools?

Is behaviour getting worse in schools? Do pupils treat their teachers and classmates with respect? Research published by ATL today suggests not, but school councils can provide learning on empathy, responsibility and improve relationships throughout the school.

The Association of Teachers and Lecturers (ATL) has found that a nearly a quarter of school and college staff have endured physical violence from a student.  87% have had to deal with disruptive students.

Poor behaviour in schools is a problem that must be addressed by the whole school community: staff, governors, parents and pupils.

School councils can be a focus for this, indeed, we see more and more school councils effectively promoting politeness and respect in their schools as well as setting up behaviour panels to deal with low-level disruption.

Pupils who are actively engaged in pupil voice projects learn how to empathise, problem-solve and act responsibly. So schools need to ensure that every pupil is engaged with these sorts of activities, whether it is through class councils, action groups or other structures.

Prof. Geoff Whitty’s 2007 research for the DCSF found that where school council had a particular focus on developing pupils’ social and emotional skills, 88% were effective.

School Councils UK’s research backed this up, finding that in most schools relationships between pupils and between pupils and staff had improved as a result of a focus on their school council.

So our formula for improving behaviour in schools is:

  • Set up whole school methods for discussion and action (e.g. class councils)
  • Ensure one of the foci is behaviour/relationships
  • Set up a sub-committee on behaviour/relationships that co-ordinates pupils, staff and parents to identify problems, find solutions, carry them out and evaluate them
  • Share your successes with us so we can give your good ideas to other schools

Easy, eh? Obviously not, so if you’d like to talk through how your school council could help improve behaviour in your school please give us a call on 0845 456 9428 or 020 7482 8915 or email asher@schoolcouncils.org.

Asher

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New head putting pupils first

A new head teacher has started at Douglas Academy, Milngavie and he has highlighted the importance pupil voice is going to play under his reign. He  even says that “pupils’ voice is as important as learning and teaching in the school.”

Full Story

Daisy

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How do teachers support non-traditional learning?

Results of a survey conducted by The Edge Foundation of 1,199 Teachers and 1,130 parents were released this week revealing a need to raise awareness and promote the value of vocational learning.

A massive 56% of teachers said that their knowledge of vocational learning was ‘poor’. The Edge Foundation claimed this to be “a real concern given young people rely on teachers for informed and impartial careers advice”. In addition to this the survey also revealed that only 8% said they have a poor understanding of university degrees.

Ensuring that all pupils have the opportunity for practical learning, through vocational courses and structures like school councils is essential for all students’ development.  Giving teachers the support and training that they need to engage students in this different way of learning needs to be a priority for everyone involved in education.

A key element of this work is to overcome the pigeon-holing of students. Where the people on particular courses or involved with certain activities all fit a certain ‘type’ success will always be constrained. We see that the most dynamic school councils are those that involve students with different strengths, interests, friendship groups and experiences of school.

School councils also offer a great head start for students who decide to progress to vocational learning, as they would have already learned and practiced project development skills and the success of working within a team.  The skills of problem-solving, analysis and research are equally valuable in academic subjects.

Daisy

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Social Entrepreneur Wanted!

MyBnk are offering a fantastic opportunity for an enterprising individual to launch a new initiative under the MyBnk umbrella, helping to create the next generation of social entrepreneurs!

MyBnk are a dynamic and award-winning charity working with young people to build the knowledge, skills and confidence to enable them to manage their money effectively and make enterprising choices throughout their lives.

The new initiative will provide young people with a fun and simple way of starting their own social business. We believe this project has the potential to be huge, allowing young people across the world to become social entrepreneurs! We are looking for someone to create and pilot the project with young people, and produce an outline of how the project will be taken forward and made sustainable.

Please note that at this stage it will not be a salaried position, you will have an initial seed funding to spend as you see fit. As part of the role is to decide how the project will be taken forward, what happens next is up to you!

This role requires a self-motivated, creative and enterprising individual. You should have experience of project management; launching new initiatives and seeing projects through from inception to completion. You must be able to get involved with all aspects of the project, from design and getting feedback from young people, to raising funds and drawing up a business plan.

We are looking for someone with a genuine interest in social change, education and the empowerment of young people, who is be able to work independently and is looking to take on a new challenge!

If you have any questions please contact Melanie on  020 7739 1828  or melanie@mybnk.org.

Application by covering letter and CV to melanie@mybnk.org. Please include details of any restrictions on your availability for interview and state clearly the job title for which you are applying. The closing date is Monday 6th April 2009.

I’d really recommend working with MyBnk, they’re a great organisation and I’m sure they’ll provide you with excellent support and experience.

Asher

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Ephebiphobia

Interesting article in the Guardian today – discussing how damaging culturally it is for society to fear young people. It talks about the problems with automatically labelling young people in a negative way that I think much of what we do is trying to tackle:

Link:
Guardian article

Also. I wonder if the 16 MPs who voted against the Youth Parliament using the HoC Chamber suffer from ephebiphobia:

BBC article

Greg

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Social and emotional development in independent schools

http://sn.im/sedis [www_dcsf_gov_uk]

Ed Balls is looking into how independent faith schools are meeting the requirements for them to provide, spiritual, social and emotional development for their pupils.

Will they look into how many have school councils or other methods of whole-school pupil voice (still trying to find out what these are)?

It’d be very interesting to see if the different establishing principles of these schools helps or hinders participation.

I met a deputy head from an indepenedent Quaker school at training I was running for ASCL.  For them collaboration, democracy and participation were at the centre of their Quaker, and therefore their school, ethos.

Asher