action – Involver

The enthusiasm of the students was fantastic.

One of the problems of school councils is that they’re exclusive, they inherently narrow down the number of people who can get involved. For a structure that’s there to give everyone a voice, that seems like the wrong way to go. On the other hand, having 100 people in a room, let alone 1,000, can make it pretty difficult to get anything done.

So when we were asked to work with Northampton Academy who have over 70 students on their school council we were eager to see how we could make it work. After a bit of head scratching as to how we would approach it I remembered a method for collective action that I’d read about: Open Space.

Open Space reflected a lot of what we already suggest to school councils:

Break down into small groups.
Work on projects you care about.
If no one cares enough to work on it, it’s probably not really important, move on to something else.

We discussed this with the senior team at Northampton Academy and we agreed to give it a go. We were all excited but equally nervous about how it would work out; it being such a departure from our normal structured training sessions, and the even more structured school days that students are used to.

After a couple of short icebreakers everyone took their seats in the large circle and we explained how the day would work:

We know they are all here because they want to help make the Academy outstanding.
It’s up to them to decide what they want to do to work towards that goal.
Anyone who wants to can suggest an idea, if they are willing to help run a group to make it happen.
Anyone can join or leave any group at any time during the day.
In fact, the one rule is: Wherever you are neither contributing or learning, move to somewhere where you are.

I lay the ideas sheets and some pens in the middle of the circle and waited, half expecting no one to come forward. Immediately twenty students ran to the middle and started scribbling down their ideas. Each of them confirmed that they wanted to put in some work to make their ideas happen. Our fears had been completely unwarranted.

A group practice their pitch to the headteacher and the rest of the school council.

There were so many ideas, each with an eager proponent that we quickly had to move into the next phase of asking them to find other people to work with them on their idea. At this stage we only let ideas with at least 3 supporters get going. The first 10 groups were each given a space to work, some resources and the support of a Y12 or Y13 student leader that we had trained the day before.

All of the groups worked with fantastic enthusiasm, thoughtfulness and purpose, so by the end of the day we had presentations from 15 different projects. Every member of the 70+ strong school council had a task she or he was going to complete, each of which was part of a larger project plan.

This was achieved by us just throwing the school open to the students and trusting them to improve it in ways that meant something to them. Through the Y12 and Y13 school council we provided them with peer mentoring. This helped them to think through the details of their projects, without adult interference.

Of course the final effectiveness of this will be judged over the coming weeks – do the students stick to their plans – but we were amazed by what they achieved in the day. We are eager to see how we can use this model with other schools to engage a much larger group of students than are normally active in a school council.

The hall was a hive of activity with students working on projects and canvassing support.

The Associate Principal studies the range of projects the students want to work on.

School councils and student voice: why bother?

School councils. Student voice. Giving young people a say in how their school is run. Sounds like effort, doesn’t it? Kids are there to be educated, not to take part in it, right?

So why do so many schools bother with it? Because the Government says you have to listen to pupils? Because Ofsted might come and chat to your school council? Because some kids had a couple of good ideas and you might as well give it a go? Because some kids want to practice being politicians, and you need to give them a way to do that?

Let’s be clear : schools present a unique opportunity for young people to learn about democracy.

And let’s be double – clear: this opportunity is being missed by too many schools.

Student voice and school councils are often tokenistic. Young people are told that they have influence (but only the cleverest or most confident are allowed to use it), that they are listened to (as long as they give the right answer), and that they are free to talk about what they want (but can’t actually do anything to make things better).

Our approach is to help schools make the most of this opportunity, challenge tokenism, and help get more young people involved.

Very simply, we want young people to understand how their ideas can turn into actions which can turn into improvements for themselves and others. Learning democracy by ‘doing democracy’. Less sitting back and moaning about things, and more action!

See what I did there?

I was working in Islamia Primary School in Brent yesterday, helping their new student voice team to plan for next year. One of the big ideas that came up was trying to get mirrors in the girls’ toilets. The girls’ headscarves were coming loose during the school day, and they had no mirrors to check if they were on properly. When they return from their summer break, the team plan to get going on this idea. They are six years old.

Now this might just be a few mirrors, but if young people can see how they can influence their lives and surroundings from a young age this plants important seeds. As they become secondary age students they will believe that they can take action and change things, and then university students will too.

Young people will find it more difficult to have the desire or to understand how they can change things in adult life if they’ve had no practice! Or if they’ve been kept in a simulated democratic world where they are ‘listened to’ but never have the experience of negotiating, collaborating and struggling to achieve their own, shared aims.

And this should never be just about training the next generation of politicians – if you know how to ‘plan’, ‘do’ and ‘reflect’ a project with a group of people, that is useful whatever you choose to do in life.

It’s also very important that schools connect learning about the same concepts. We’re all agreed that democracy and empowerment are important concepts, right?

So let’s use every opportunity we can to connect what we can learn about in the news, in the curriculum, with what we do in student voice. It’s about connecting what others do, with what we do.

Let’s reflect on MPs expenses, by talking about school councillor expenses; let’s discuss the coalition government by talking about how easy it is to decide things by committee; let’s think about the civil rights movement and suffragettes when planning a student voice election. We grasp things best when we understand them from different angles.

Not seeing these links can undermine everything. You might be less inspired about by Barack Obama’s democratic journey if your ‘democratic’ school council is just the ten brightest pupils, picked by the head teacher!

So let’s be clear: a healthy democracy needs curious, active people. A healthy democracy needs healthy democratic education, and schools are central to that.

Let’s not be complacent.

Greg