Tag: Case study

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involver blog

3 tips to get staff on side with your school council

Last week I got an email from a teacher at a school I’d run training at recently (which shall remain nameless). We’d had a great day, the school council had come up with a real range of projects and great ways to communicate with the rest of the school. Unfortunately the email was not to tell me how well the students were getting on, but about the negative reactions from school staff. When minutes from the meeting were sent our staff comments ranged from sarcastic to deeply concerned. The posters the school council had put up explaining what they were working on were even taken down.

The school council co-ordinator asked me for advice. I’m sure she’s not the only one facing these problems, so I thought I would share what I told her with you. There isn’t a quick fix of course, but here are three things I suggest:

1. Explain the role of the school council

Make it clear to staff that the minutes are not what is going to happen, but what the students are taking on. In many cases they share the concerns of the staff and want to work with them to sort them out, that’s why their first step is often to meet with the relevant staff member. It’s not for staff members to give a straight ‘yes’ or ‘no’, but to ask the students what the students will do to make this happen. For example, if students want more trips they should be told they need to organise them. They will need help with this and they won’t have access to the money, but it’s not for the staff member to do all the running, the whole point is getting students to make happen those things they are keen on. Students need to be clear in their own minds and especially in anything they commit to paper on the difference between what they are DOING and what they are ASKING FOR. What they are DOING will happen (with their effort) what they are ASKING FOR may not.

2. Minutes detail students’ plans of action

Recycling plan notes
Project planning notes made by pupils at a recent primary training day.

Ensure that what goes into the minutes is what actions the students will take. This way staff (and others) can see that these are issues of concern to students and that they are doing something about it. It helps where the minutes say more than ‘Meet with Ms X’, but also record what students are intending on suggesting, i.e. how they will help. The ‘school council ideas form‘ should help with this – the last section asks what the person filling it out will do to help – make sure no ideas come to the meeting without something here. Ensure those actions are clearly recorded in the minutes.

3. Attach prep work to the minutes

Something else to consider is the detail of the minutes. If either of the staff members mentioned above had seen the whole discussion they would know that the issues they raised were discussed. I suggest these very brief minutes as I think in general most people don’t read long minutes and it’s difficult for the secretary to take part if they are trying to record everything. However they don’t cover the detail of the discussion. Maybe if the ideas forms or project plans were attached to the minutes it would help those not at the meeting to see the thought that had gone into it without increasing the burden on the secretary.

Do you think these ideas might help in your school? Have you done anything else that has worked?

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involver blog

How you can help teach about participatory budgeting

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As regular readers of our website will know, we think participatory budgeting is a fantastic way to get your whole school involved in pupil voice. Loads of schools do it already through getting the whole school involved in deciding on new playground equipment or how a new building should be fitted out, but coming up with a good structure for it can transform student voice in your school.

This guy wants the chance to help schools across Europe learn about good ways to run participatory budgeting, but he needs your help. He’s asking for small donations (even just a couple of pounds) to fund the making and distribution of this series of interactive videos.

Watch the video he’s made explaining the idea and if you can pledge some money, please do (I have already).

If you can’t see the information about the project to the left, click this link to see the video, read more and pledge: http://www.kisskissbankbank.com/apprendre-a-compter

 

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involver blog

Great ideas from Brno for effective school council meetings

School council meeting in Brno
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
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
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.
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involver blog

Fantastic school council meeting in Krnov

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.

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involver blog

Student voice ideas and projects

Last week I ran a training course for ASCL on student voice: Student voice beyond school councils

I asked all the delegates to list as many student voice ideas, initiatives and projects as they could, both those used in their schools, and others that they had heard of. This is the list they came up with. I provided the five headings, but I did not offer a specific definition of what ‘student voice’ is. You might find it useful to prompt discussion in your school and give you some ideas for how you could expand student voice. Below the list I offer a bit of analysis of some of the methods.

Teaching and learning

Teaching and learning ideas

  • Learning walks to other establishments
  • 1st week of Scheme of Work is planning the scheme with the students
  • Student curriculum panels
  • Student governors
  • Students as researchers
  • Students into lesson programme
  • Peer teaching
  • Student interviewers
  • Part of departmental review/visits
  • ‘My World’ Project-based learning, completely self-directed with vivas
  • Drama in Education Theatre Group [Reaction] help organise + deliver assemblies, e.g. work experience/bullying
  • Student appointment panels
  • Reading: peer mentors – Y10 top set English used to support low ‘reading age’ students in Y7 + Y8 x 30 mins per week in library
  • Policy consultation
  • Mini ‘Insted’ – termly
  • Peer mentoring
  • Golden lessons
  • Lesson feedback + surveys
  • Student researcher: what makes a good lesson?
  • Student mentoring
  • Student-led mentoring
  • Students used to observe and score candidates’ presentations during SELECTION PROCESS
  • Student mentoring Y12 pupils mentoring Y10
  • Reading pairs
  • Pupils to observe lessons and give feedback
  • Students involved in departmental meetings discussing teaching and learning issues
  • Student council
  • Learning council
  • Student SEF
  • Homework review: regularity, consistency, quality, use of school system
  • Lead learners – student observers
  • Student lesson observations
  • Student voice questionnaires in department learning reviews
  • Student interview panel
  • Language champions
  • Student receptionist
  • Digital leaders
  • Pupils as observers
  • Debating society
  • Student involvement in lesson observations and feedback
  • Student learning exchange visits
  • Student panel involvement in staff reviews
  • Student voice panel on all staff interviews
  • Learning walks, possible to use students
  • Student panel involvement in departmental reviews

Environment

  • Ground Force group
  • Looking into solar energy
  • Consultations for colour schemes for school
  • Keeping an eye on what needs doing
  • Chickens
  • Community voice reps
  • Enterprise reps
  • Students working with school interior manager to update displays around the school throughout the year
  • Key stage toilets
  • Eco school
  • Student marketing and branding group
  • School council influence on things such as uniform, dinners, toilets
  • BeMAD (fundraising group)
  • Tree planting
  • School council
  • Charity reps
  • Recycling

Relationships

  • Peer mentoring support groups
  • Anti-bullying support
  • Students running societies – e.g. politics society, debating
  • Student tours for visitors
  • Partnership with local schools’ council
  • Meet and greet/guides at open evenings and for visitors
  • Subject prefects – helping with activities involving younger pupils
  • Volunteer council
  • Student ambassadors
  • Working with primary students – sports leaders + dance leaders
  • ‘Pay it forward’ council
  • Promoting the school – 6th Form student ambassadors (this also generates feedback)
  • Confidential clinic
  • Health and safety society (leads to STI presentations)
  • Peer mentors – Blue Guardian Angels – used to support younger students with emotional issues, behavioural issues or bullying
  • Student senior leaders + SCT meetings
  • Links to town council – chambers for meetings
  • Rights Respecting Schools
  • Peer mentoring

Behaviour

  • Behaviour for learning group
  • Student duty staff
  • Pulling pupils out of detention to discuss areas within student voice – gauge their opinion
  • School policies: uniform, bullying, etc.
  • Development of anti-bullying policy
  • Peer mentors – restorative justice
  • Development of behaviour policy
  • Students given specific duties to monitor behaviour at break and lunch times
  • Anti-bullying strategies, e.g. poster competitions/campaign, anti-bullying group
  • House system – vertical groups mean highest level students can assist younger pupils, e.g. UCAS admissions

Other

  • Fair trade
  • Involved in school and student liturgy groups (Catholic school)
  • Representation at Town Remembrance Service
  • Peer support
  • VLE: setting up a student voice forum
  • Ideas – feedback on student menus
  • House captains
  • Open evenings/parents evenings: front of house, tours, speaking
  • Shadow governors
  • Student council
  • Student interview panels for higher TLR posts
  • Big Idea reps
  • Involved in staff appointments
  • Young Enterprise
  • Charity/fundraising
  • Student governors
  • Citizenship Award: For student in Y10 who has taken his/her own initiative to support the school. Focus decided by student.
  • Primary school links: language, citizenship, PE, etc.
  • Meeting VIPs
  • Visiting speakers
  • 6th Form partnership group
  • Fundraising
  • On-line Agony Aunt
  • Youth Parliament
  • Front desk
  • Sports leaders
  • Naming student voice as ‘The Voice’ (also a singing contest pupils like).
  • Non-uniform days for charities
  • Sub-committees for various issues (Buildings & Environment, Relationships & Behaviour, Learning & Teaching, Events & Fundraising)
  • Young chamber
  • Links with local youth council and local area action group
  • SNAG: School Nutrition Action Group
  • Youth Parliament
  • Prefects involved in charity/local fundraising and activities
  • International school
  • Working groups: Environment, Website, Canteen, Fundraising & Events
  • Student guides

Analysis

The first thing that struck me was simply how many ideas were under the ‘teaching and learning’ heading. A few years ago very few schools even saw this as an appropriate issue for school councils and student voice to touch on. During our discussions throughout the day it was also clear that it was the area that all of the teachers in the room wanted students to be able to have more of an impact on.

The methods suggested demand a little more examination though. This is not my list and I would not suggest any school should be doing all of these things (I don’t even know what all of them are) but most are worth a go. However, whilst there are many very good ideas here, I wouldn’t classify all of them as ‘student voice’. I think a distinction should be made between ‘student leadership’, ‘students given responsibility’ and ‘student voice’. All can be useful but confusing them can have unintended consequences for learning.

Having students as receptionists, showing people around the school and presenting at conferences is excellent: the students learn skills, and better understand how the school works, the school demonstrates its ethos of putting young people at its heart and the guests/visitors/delegates get a different perspective on the school. Everyone wins. Unless you tell the young people that this is their way of having a say in how the school runs, in how they learn, because it’s not. It teaches them that you (and by extension others in power) don’t know how to listen and don’t care to give them the appropriate opportunity to be heard. That’s not a good thing for your school, or society as a whole.

It’s somewhat similar to the experience of the Games Makers at the Olympics. They were integral to its success and thousands of them gave their time gladly and were rightly proud of the part they had played. If they had been recruited with the promise that they would ‘have a say’ in how the Games was run would they have been so happy to turn up on day two when it became clear on day one that their job was just to point people in the right direction?

So be clear about the opportunities available to students, why they are valuable, what they will get out of it, what they can contribute, but don’t over-promise.

Type (Asher’s) definition Examples Learning opportunities
Students given responsibility Students are asked to carry out duties that someone else has defined.There is little or no opportunity for them to change what these duties are.
  • Monitors
  • Prefects
  • Student receptionists
  • Guide for visitors
  • Sports captains
  • Peer mediators
  • Skills for a particular job
  • Learning how the school functions
  • Responsibility
  • Mediation
  • Being a role model
Student leadership Students take on a leadership role in issues that do not affect the core business of the school or their community.These roles are not initiated by students, but they may be quite self-directed in the way they fulfil them.
  • Fundraising for external charities
  • Student mentoring
  • Debating society
  • Student ambassadors
  • Running after-school clubs
  • Sports/drama/arts leaders (who just assist the teacher)
  • Being /having positive, young role models
  • Planning
  • Organisation
  • Presenting
  • Developing responsibility and independence
Student voice – individual Students are asked, as individuals, to feed in to the decisions made about them in school.
  • Surveys
  • Feedback forms
  • Polls
  • Individual, self-directed study
  • That students’ views and opinions are valued
  • That staff are keen to continue improving and learning
Student voice – democratic Students are asked to collectively feed in to decisions made about the core business of the school (T&L, buildings, behaviour, policies, rules)This needs to involve some level of discussion, collaboration, negotiation and compromise. It is not simply passing on 1200 views, but coming to some shared positions.
  • School councils (backed by an effective, whole school structure)
  • Students as researchers group
  • Student governors
  • Student sub-committees
  • Compromise
  • Negotiation
  • Responsibility
  • Understanding of how the school works
  • Being a representative
  • Organisation
  • Communication
  • Planning
  • That students’ views and opinions are valued
  • That staff are keen to continue improving and learning
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Case Studies involver blog

School council and student voice case study: Barming Primary

Here’s the final case study in our series of school council case studies. A great example of how school councils can drive school improvement from Barming Primary in Kent.

Key benefits:

  • Better relationships between students, teachers and governors. There is a strong feeling that they are all working together and the school council helps the school to achieve this.
  • Every student wants to have a say in how the school runs and school councillors have a high profile.
  • Students are better prepared to understand and overcome difficult issues. They learn that that helping to improve the school is not always easy and quick, and that it is not just about moaning. For example, the school council are concerned about the relationship between students and the dinner ladies. They have organised a meeting to try to improve things.

Top advice:

  • Link the students with the governors. Put a standing item on the governing body’s agenda to look at the school council’s minutes and to hear from the children.
  • To strengthen this link, ask a member of the governing body to be responsible for going to school council meetings. It helps give everyone a rounded experience of the school by sharing different perspectives.
  • As headteacher, do not attend school council meetings. Students will be less frank and less willing to say what they feel. The headteacher at Barming Primary School meets after each school council meeting with the chair, secretary and treasurer to understand what was agreed and discussed.
  • Do not shy away from difficult issues, but use them as learning points for all.
  • Give the school council a budget. Even if it is small, it shows a commitment to the school council and their ability to make realistic choices.

Methods used:

School council

The school council meets regularly and plays an important role in the life of the school. School councillors have a high profile and feature on a prominent display in the school hall. The school council is very popular and the school councillors talk with pride when they discuss what they’ve been working on.

Recent projects include getting more signs in the school to help students know where they are going, mirrors in the school toilets and the relationship between students and the dinner ladies. The school also ran a very successful ‘Apple Day’ which celebrated local varieties of apples and invited the community into the school. The school council is leading on other fruit-themed days using local produce.

The school council has a budget of £50 a year, but the school has decided to raise this to £100.

Strong system of class councils

Class councils regularly talk about ideas and issues that they have in the school. For the school council meetings, they have to come up with their two most important ideas that they would like to be discussed. Two students from each class attend the school council meeting and describe their two ideas.

Regular circle time

Regular circle time helps to boost students’ confidence and ability to talk in front of a group. This strengthens the class councils and school council meetings.

Governor interaction

A governor attends the school council meetings, and there is a standing item on the agenda for all governors meetings to get an update on the school council, and to look at their minutes.

About the school:

Barming Primary School is larger than average. Several significant changes in staff have taken place in the past 18 months, including the headteacher. The school has more boys than girls. Most pupils are White British. The proportion of other minority ethnic heritages is below the national average and includes pupils from a variety of Asian or Black British or Black African heritages. A significant minority of these pupils speak more than one language but few are at the early stages of learning English as an additional language.

The proportion of pupils with special educational needs and/or learning disabilities is broadly average, as is the proportion with a statement of special educational needs. The proportion of pupils known to be eligible for free school meals is below average. In the Early Years Foundation Stage, there are two Reception classes. The school has several awards reflecting its commitment to healthy lifestyles.

 

Involver conducted these case studies for the Office of the Children’s Commissioner in 2011, as part of a project to encourage schools to involve their students in decision making