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involver newsletter 2: School council ideas, problems and solutions

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Hello from involver – newsletter number 2

Hope you’re all doing well and enjoying the sun and World Cup. We’ve created some new resources and found a few things that you and your schools might find useful, so here they are …

Resource: Pupil interview panels – getting it right
After a lot of misconceptions in the press about what this involves, we’ve written a brief guide to getting the most out of interview panels that involve students.
http://involver.org.uk/2010/04/pupil-interview-panels-getting-it-right/

Resource: More student voice ideas, issues and some solutions
Some really great ideas and suggestions came up from training we’ve run recently for ASCL, in London, and Wolverhampton Local Authority in, well, Wolverhampton. You or schools you work with may find them useful and we’d find it really useful if you add any suggestions of your own.
http://involver.org.uk/2010/06/school-council-ideas-and-student-voice-issues/
http://involver.org.uk/2010/06/common-school-council-issues-with-solutions/

Resource: Excellent World Cup learning activities
You know we couldn’t get through this newsletter without one World Cup resource, and this one from LSIS is great (if you don’t work in post-16 we’re sure you resourceful involvers could adapt it).
http://www.excellencegateway.org.uk/media/Post16%20Citizenship%20Support%20Programme/Football_supplement_FINAL.pdf

Website: Got a school council website? Add it to our showcase
We’re building up a list of great school council websites – if you have would like to be featured here, please email us at info@involver.org.uk
Tiffany Ryan of Changemakers has been helping us out with this – thanks Tiffany!
http://involver.org.uk/links/school-councils-websites/

Also, if you think our site is useful and want to help others find it, please link to us on your blog or website.

Event: Speaker’s School Council Awards
After 2,500 schools registering interest, hundreds of schools have applied to the Speaker’s School Council Awards. We helped Parliament and the excellent team of judges to whittle the entries down to twenty. Each of these fantastic school council projects will attend an exciting awards ceremony in Parliament on June 23rd. John Bercow, the Speaker of the House of Commons, will award a winner in each age category, so thanks to everyone for applying! You can see schools that have been shortlisted at:
http://www.parliament.uk/education/special-events-and-programmes/speakers-school-council/

Event: AGON – Ancient Greek-style political drama debate
On the 6th of July secondary students from Enfield will be running this innovative event which encourages discussion on issues about media and celebrity through any medium, including drama, dance, music and film. Anyone and everyone is invited to be part of the audience and take part. It’s at the Scoop Amphitheatre next to the GLA buildings by Tower Bridge, London, fittingly.
Email mark.barrett@kingsmead.org for more details.

Video: Kids taking charge – India-style
Ever visit the TED website? It’s one of our favourites. Here’s a link to an inspiring eight minute talk on the ‘I can bug’ developed by Kiran Bir Sethi of Riverside School, Ahmedebad, India.
http://www.ted.com/talks/kiran_bir_sethi_teaches_kids_to_take_charge.html

Research: PSHE in schools and empowering students
Researchers from Brighton University need your help to collect responses from students on how they get to have a say in what topics should be included in PSHE. They are also seeking their views on the curriculum delivered in schools currently. Please give this link to your students and colleagues:
https://eforms.crawley.gov.uk/af3/an/default.aspx/RenderForm/?F.Name=AVhVYHSESfL

Networking-fun: Democraball!
Democraball! runs every month and new players and supporters are always welcome. It’s now got a Facebook group so if you’re in London, and fancy a (very amateur) game of five a side football, then join the group or get in touch at info@involver.org.uk.
http://www.facebook.com/home.php?#!/group.php?gid=127543770612104

Remember, if you want to get in touch about anything we’re up to, then please email us at info@involver.org.uk. We’re also always keen to hear about and share good practice, new resources or developments in student voice.

Thanks!

Greg and Asher @ involver
If you want to our newsletter in your inbox each month, put your email address in the ‘get our newsletter box’ in the top right of this page.

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involver blog Resources

Common school council issues – with solutions!

I posted yesterday about a number of student voice ideas and issues that came up at a training session I ran recently. It seemed a bit remiss to leave those issues just hanging there, we are in the business of (helping you) solve those kinds of problems after all. Luckily I took some photos last week at the training I ran for Wolverhampton’s primary school council co-ordinators where we were looking at what solutions they might use for just some of these problems.

Apologies for the rather garish colours but they actually make the images more readable (honestly). If any of them are too small to read, click on them and you’ll be able to see a larger version. These are the issues we looked at:

Meetings have gone flat
What can we do if our meetings have gone flat?

Need more support from senior staff
What can I do if I'm not getting the support I need from senior staff (e.g. given time and resources to run things)?

How to build on this year's success
Things have gone well this year, how do we make sure we don't lose that?

No time for feedback
What can we do if class teachers don't give reps time to feedback?

How to get better motivated people involved
The people on the school council aren't great at getting things done, what can we do?

Not being treated seriously by staff
What can I do if other staff in the school don't give the school council the importance it deserves/needs?
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involver blog Resources

School council ideas and student voice issues

Just before half term I ran a training course for ASCL (the Association of School and College Leaders), as part of this we collected together a wide variety of student voice activities that the participants had come across. We also highlighted a number of issues that could come up in trying to implement these schemes.

I thought this was a great collection so I’m sharing them with you here.  Please add any other ideas in the comments and I’ll add them to the mindmap.

To see the whole mindmap (it’s pretty large) click on  expand mind map (in the middle at the top), this will collapse all the levels. Then click on the little plus signs on each ‘node’ to expand it. The whole map can be dragged around too. (If this is just too complicated there’s a list version underneath)

[iframe http://mind42.com/pub/mindmap?mid=ca7480b6-1c1e-4967-9747-f328bb4b3b09 100% 500px]

To see the whole mindmap (it’s pretty large) click on  expand mind map (in the middle at the top), this will collapse all the levels. Then click on the little plus signs on each ‘node’ to expand it. The whole map can be dragged around too. (If this is just too complicated there’s a list version underneath)


Student Voice Ideas and Issues

  • + –
    Behaviour

    • + –
      Support

      • Conflict resolution
      • Target setting
      • Buddies
    • + –
      Monitoring/enforcement

      • Student Panel
      • Prefect System
      • Prefect system based on school council
      • ‘Self Government’ responsible for rules
    • + –
      Policy-making

      • Code of Conduct
      • Setting class groundrules
      • Linking local community to school council to deal with after school issues
      • Head boy/girl oversee prefect system
      • Rewards and sanctions group
  • + –
    Issues

    • + –
      Due to structure

      • Involving all students
      • Power
      • Money
      • Time
      • Influence
      • Succession
    • + –
      Fears

      • Is it democratic?
      • Censorship required?
      • Getting a representative group
      • Getting responses completed and handed back
      • Pleasing everyone
      • Unsupportive colleagues
    • + –
      Individuals’ ability

      • + –
        Lack of training

        • Staff
        • Students
      • Making decsions
      • Planning issues
      • Confidentiality
      • Realistic/appropriate ideas
    • + –
      Perception issues

      • Seen negatively by other students
      • Pupils not on council/identified by badges, ties, etc. might feel they have less influence
      • Getting people to recognise the importance
  • + –
    Teaching and Learning

    • Pupil interview panels
    • Students to reseacrh attitudes to learning
    • + –
      Peer support

      • Peer assessment
      • Peer mentoring
      • Peer tutoring (reluctant readers)
      • Student academic mentors
    • + –
      Formal student evaluation

      • Student SEF
      • Faculty reviews
      • Insted (student Ofsted)
      • Lesson observations by student council
      • Reviews
      • Student observers
      • Students observing rooms focussing on noticeboards and levelled work
    • + –
      Informal student evaluation

      • Learning walks
      • Discussion on T&L
    • + –
      Student planning and teaching

      • Students teaching G&T lessons
      • Numeracy, literacy and sports leaders
      • Curriculum planning
      • Ambassadors for different subject areas
      • Sports ambassadors
  • + –
    Environment

    • + –
      Eco

      • + –
        Reducing carbon footprint

        • Students approached governors and got £500 to kick off project
      • Campaign to use both sides of paper in ICT
      • + –
        Eco council

        • Huge electricity bill
        • School eco bag
        • Sustainability
        • Recycled stationery shop
        • Eco bags competition
    • + –
      Built environment

      • Surveys
      • Students designing toilets in BSF
      • Changing the building
      • Environmental group (outside spaces)
    • + –
      School environment

      • Sub-committees
      • New uniform put in place by school council
      • School improvement
      • House leaders recognised through their tie and jumpers
      • Fund raising for school council to meet objectives
  • + –
    Relationships

    • Appointments
    • + –
      Leaders wristbands

      • Community
      • Befriender
      • Attender
    • + –
      Fund raising activities

      • Enterprise
    • Anti-bullying (FAB)
    • Good Citizenship Awards
    • + –
      Peer mentoring

      • Bullying
      • Advisors
    • Student website
    • Council target setting using SMART targets to measure success
    • Creating a handbook for new migrant students
  • + –
    Other

    • Attending governors meetings
    • Student-led magazine
    • Tour guides
    • Representing the school at events
    • Students helping with SEF
    • Decorating toilets
    • Participatory budgeting
    • Student leadership
    • + –
      Major officials system

      • 1 vote per member of school
    • + –
      Charity decisions

      • Fund raising
    • + –
      Policy discussion

      • + –
        Anti-racism policy

        • How staff should deal with racism in class
    • Pupils running enrichment activities
    • + –
      Whole school celebrations

      • Black history month
    • E-safety
    • Uniform changes
    • Assemblies
    • School council
    • + –
      Anti-smoking campaign

      • Patches

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involver blog

Softball (sort of) success

Our first softball match in the London Charity Softball League was lots of fun.

We’ve entered a joint team with the fabulous Changemakers and British Youth Council.

Our opponents were the British Heart Foundation and although we lost, we had a great time. It’s only our first game though – we definately have lots to learn!

Here’s us in our Diesel-sponsored T Shirts:

UPDATE: Second match was won! (even though it was because the other team didn’t turn up)

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involver blog

It’s true. We do sometimes wear suits..

Although this was a while ago, thought I’d post the picture from the 30 under 30 Awards. Thanks too all our friends that came along, and made the day lots of fun…..

And have a great holiday weekend!

Greg

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involver blog

Participatory budgeting – the essence of student voice?

What’s your school’s ethos?

Most of the schools I meet use terms like ‘community’, ‘the school as a family’, ‘listening to and valuing all pupils’ and ’empowering learners’.

  • So how do you prove the ethos of your school?
  • Can you measure your school’s ethos?

Now those are a couple of tricky questions (not least grammatically). The answers I usually see are:

  • You could write it above the entrance as a motto/vision/mission statement.
  • Do a survey to feel if people feel ‘listened to/safe/happy/enlightened/self-actualised’ (okay, I haven’t actually heard either of the last two).
Participatory Budgeting toolkit by PB Unit
Participatory Budgeting toolkit by PB Unit

Yesterday Greg and I spent a fascinating few hours discussing something far more tangible, empowering and effective: participatory budgeting (now there’s a name to get the pulse racing!). We were at a meeting convened by the Participatory Budgeting Unit, Citizenship Foundation and ourselves and attended by several other organisations with a range of interests and experiences in the field.

The idea of participatory budgeting, as I see it, is simple:

You involve the people whose money is being spent in the decisions about how that money is spent. (Wikipedia goes into more detail, naturally)

So how does this relate to school ethos? Well, if you say you’re a school that listens to your pupils, how about listening to them on a proportion of your budget? Set a percentage, set some boundaries and a structure, listen and then act (even better, help them to act).

Like it or not money is essential to how a school works. If you really want to involve your whole school community in decision-making then that’s going to involve how money is spent. Make a statement. Involve the whole school in he process and let them see the outcomes.

This also gives you a yardstick by which to measure how you are progressing. The more trust grows between staff, students and governors; the more students learn about how the school runs; the more responsible they show themselves to be: the larger the percentage of the budget is that they help control.

Over the coming months we (the meeting organisers) intend to help produce tools and guidance to assist schools in involving all pupils in ‘PB’.