Tag: Competitions & awards

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involver blog Newsletters

Newsletter 6: New awards, new training and new resources for the New Year

Hello from involver – newsletter number 6.

Happy New Year and welcome to involver’s first newsletter of 2011. It’s that strange time of year when Christmas feels like it was a long time ago, but there’s still ages till it gets warm. To try and take your mind off it, here’s a rundown on what we’ve been up to and also some free stuff for you.

Resource: School Council Progress Board
Asher put together this great way for school councils to keep track of how their projects are going, and the progress that is being made. Very useful, and a lot more engaging than the old and dusty ‘school council noticeboard’ that hasn’t changed in months!
http://involver.org.uk/2010/10/school-council-progress-boards/

Awards: Speakers School Council Awards 2011 now open
The Speaker’s School Council Awards is rolling into action for a second year. This brilliant project rewards school and college councils that run innovative projects with a big impact. So get your school or college on the shiny new website and apply for the Award. It’s a great project that we’re absolutely chuffed to be working on with Parliament. Get involved at:
www.speakersschoolcouncil.org

Party: involver is 1
Towards the end of last year, involver was 1 year old. We had a little first birthday party to celebrate, and over many, many games of table football, we said thanks to the people we’ve worked with, or who have helped us out. Here’s a few pictures from the night:
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=604091&id=312498090415&ref=mf

Awards: Future 100
We recently won our second award; for being one of the Future 100 Young Entrepreneurs in the UK. It’s great to be recognised in this way because setting up a new social enterprise sometimes feels quite thankless! Read more here:
http://involver.org.uk/2010/11/involver-wins-future-100-award/

Competition: £100 voucher
If you joined up to the involver newsletter after seeing our wonderfully bright pink leaflet, then welcome on board! Hope you enjoy the free resources and things we’ll be sending you from now on. Feel free to get in touch or ask a question on our site’s FAQ. The winner of the £100 vouchers was Jade Burnett-MacDonald.

News: Curriculum review and Democratic Life
As we’re sure you know, Michael Gove, Secretary of State for Education, announced the review into the curriculum yesterday. If you’re a teacher, you’re probably groaning about this and asking whether we really need another review with another set of major changes. Whatever your views are, you can find out more here http://www.education.gov.uk/schools/teachingandlearning/curriculum/nationalcurriculum and click on the ‘Call for Evidence’ link to share your views and evidence of what works. As part of the Democratic Life campaign, we’re working hard to keep Citizenship in there!
www.democraticlife.org.uk

Article: Student Voice and CPD
Asher has written an interesting article on student voice and CPD for Iris Connect, a professional development network. Read it here:
http://irisconnecteducatio.ning.com/page/student-voice-by-asher/
Oddly, Asher also got interviewed by Keith Vaz MP for Asian Voice: http://issuu.com/abpl/docs/av_20nov2010 (page 2 no less – we really need to get some more pictures of him though)

Training: School Councils and Students as Lesson Observers
We’ve had a really busy time training in 2011 so far, with great sessions in Huddersfield, Basingstoke and a few in London, we’ve also started work with 3 secondary schools and 1 primary on setting up students as lesson observers. Also very rewarding was watching a Year 6 pupil, who we’d trained the week before, expertly chairing a KS1 school council meeting (hopefully we’ll get permission to post the video soon).

If you want to get some student voice, student leadership or school council training before the end of the finacial year, we still have some dates available but get in touch soon on info@involver.org.uk or 020 3411 3294.
http://involver.org.uk/school-council-training-and-student-voice-support

Music: January’s involver playlist
Here’s this newsletter’s spotify playlist. I must apologise in advance for the Simply Red song that features, it’s just that the title is pretty relevant in the current climate :)
http://open.spotify.com/user/scyne/playlist/4G98SVCHNTGKV3LRnL2FZT

Thanks for listening!

Greg and Asher

http://twitter.com/doingdemocracy
http://facebook.com/involver.org.uk

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Newsletters

Newsletter 5: Citizenship under threat

Hello from involver: newsletter number 5!

As I’m sure is the case for many of you, the start of the new school year has meant we’ve been so busy we’ve missed September. That’s why your September edition of this newsletter is arriving in mid-October, I know this will have thrown so many of you who base your working life around the publication date of this email :)

The attachment – our very magenta flyer

News: Citizenship education – is it for the chop?

There are rumours that the Coalition Government’s plans for a slimmer curriculum will involve getting rid of Citizenship. We believe this would undermine widespread engagement with the ‘Big Society’ and remove a key, active element of young people’s democratic education. We’ve joined Democratic Life to put the case for strong Citizenship teaching in every school. You should too.
http://www.democraticlife.org.uk

Resource: School council rep’s toolkit

This free guide is for new and prospective reps, whether they’re class reps, year reps or members of a local youth council. Its got tips and ideas on what makes a good rep, how to run meetings and manage projects. You can even download the original files to customise with your own school or LA logos and advice:
http://involver.org.uk/2010/10/school-council-reps-tookit/

Blog: Does a youth council have to look like a council?

Why do we assume that a formal meeting is the only/best way to run things? Most of us find meetings boring, yet we put young people through the same process. I’ve been working with a group of 15 year-olds to design something a bit different:
http://involver.org.uk/2010/09/does-a-youth-council-have-to-look-like-a-council/

Competition: Make a cool film and win equipment and a workshop with a top UK film director

Cut Films is a competition to get young people making films with, and for, each other about not-smoking. They have just launched this year’s competition with a deadline of 31 January 2011. For more information please see:
http://www.cutfilms.org

Training: New session on collecting information

I wrote and ran this session for Preston Manor High School in Brent about the benefits and problems with different ways of collecting views from your peers. They seemed to really enjoy it. Why don’t you give it a go and tell us if it works for you:
http://involver.org.uk/2010/10/school-council-training-collecting-information/

Resource: Help trial our Student Voice-o-meter

Building on our Simple Student Voice Audit Tool, we’ve built a more sophisticated way to see how loud the student voice is in schools. It’s student-led and is simple and quick enough it can be run in form time. We need a few schools to try it out for us though before we unleash it on the world. Let us know if you’re interested in getting this sneak peek:
info@involver.org.uk

Video: Pupil voice videos from across the web

We keep seeing great videos related to pupil voice, democratic education and school councils around the web, but couldn’t find a place where they’re all together, so we’ve created one. They’re great for CPD and to inspire your school council (or staff). Let us know if you’ve seen things we should add:
http://www.involver.org.uk/resources/videos/

Blog: Learner Voice: why bother?

Greg’s been asked to write a ‘thinkpiece’ for LSN’s magazine. He focussed on why learner voice (as it’s known in the 14-19 sector) is so important. Do you have anything to add?
http://involver.org.uk/2010/09/involver-thinkpiece-for-lsn-learnings-magazine-learner-voice-why-bother/

Resource: Find school council resources more easily

We’ve redesigned our resources pages so it’s now quicker and easier to find school council and student voice resources to download. Have a look and let us know what you think:
http://www.involver.org.uk/resources/
Hope to hear from you all soon,

Greg and Asher @ involver

P.S. If you think other people might find what we do useful and you’ve got a network, conference or event where you could give away copies of the attached flyers we’d really appreciate it. Just let us know how many you need and we’ll put them in the post. Thanks!

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involver blog Newsletters

Newsletter 3: Why bother, audit, training and fantasy football

Hello from involver: Newsletter number 3!

The summer break is almost upon us (or already here, depending on where in the UK you are), so we hope you’ve had a great year!

Here’s a round up of what we’ve been up to over the last month:

Blog: School councils and student voice: why bother?
Greg says, ‘I’m working from Scotland for most of this week, which meant a very long eight hour train journey! After a double espresso, I was feeling a bit reflective about some of the things that we’re doing with involver and why we’ve been doing them.’ Here are his thoughts:
http://involver.org.uk/2010/07/school-councils-and-student-voice-why-bother/

Training: Making your school council READY!
Lots of schools are thinking about how they can improve their school council or student voice next year – we can help you make it READY (yes, that’s an acronym, have a look here if you want to know what for):
http://involver.org.uk/2010/07/school-council-training-get-in-touch/

Resource: Great set of student voice resources from Australia
Asher came across this series of presentations and supporting resources, which was created by Nick Rate, a trainer from Australia. He’s recorded it all so the people he supports in far flung places down under can access them, but of course it means we all can, we love the internet:
http://www.jogtheweb.com/run/AlhYPd3PMcUd/Student-Voice

Video: Make Your Voice Heard: Discover Democratic Education
A great video from the States about why ‘doing democracy’ in schools is so important. It is included in the set above, but worth a special mention:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S_LbZ3XcfK4

Project: Speaker’s School Council Awards 2011
After a hugely successful opening year, you can now register your interest in the Speakers School Council Awards 2011. It’s a great way to get your achievements recognised, so to get involved, hop over to:
http://www.speakersschoolcouncil.org

Evaluation: Student voice/school council progress this year?
How have you been getting on with student voice, this year? It’s not easy to get right, and it still takes work and support even when it’s a success. We’ve built a very short audit tool to help you reflect. Fill it out and we’ll even provide you with personalised feedback and ideas if you want us to:
http://involver.org.uk/participate/simple-student-voice-audit/

Network: A new Student Voice and School council Linkedin group
For those of you that use Linkedin (for those who don’t: it’s kind of like a professional Facebook), we’ve set up a group to connect and inform people about student voice and school councils. We’re still finding our way around LinkedIn, but our teacher friends tell us it’s very useful. So take a look, and join at: http://www.linkedin.com/groups?mostPopular=&gid=3089339

Networking-fun: Fantasy Democraball!
We’ve set up a fantasy football mini-league for our friends, colleagues and contacts, so please join and invite oithers.  You don’t need to know anything about football, just how to add up to £100,000,000. It’s a head-to-head league, so each game you’ll be playing against another person from the citizenship/student voice/youth democracy world (your skill in beating them will be a good ice-breaker topic for when you next meet them at a conference). It’s free to sign up. Once you’ve picked your team use this code to join the ‘Democraball!’ league: 116742-35727
http://fantasy.premierleague.com

So have a great summer!

And 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.

Greg and Asher @ involver

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involver blog

School council training – get in touch!

Lots of schools are beginning to think about training their school council, or student voice groups, for next academic year.

If you want to make your student voice READY, then get in touch! You can read more about our training here.

It might be two days training to breathe new life into your tired school council, a staff INSET on student voice, or a half day workshop supporting students to be on an interview panel. Whatever it is, all of our training aims to make student voice:

Real, Everyone, Active, Democratic, Youth-led

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involver blog Newsletters

involver newsletter 2: School council ideas, problems and solutions

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.


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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I’d like to thank my mum, God and all the little people

Greg making his acceptance speech
What I imagine Greg's acceptance speech will look like. I hope he doesn't cry.

I’m a little bit excited today, well actually I have been all week, because tomorrow we’re off to a very swanky awards ceremony at the Hilton in Park Lane, where Greg has won an award!

So, we’ve both bought our outfits and arranged a very select group of colleagues and friends to join us (sorry if you didn’t get an invitation!). In facts it’s rather got in the way of us actually doing anything productive, which is a bit ironic as that’s what Greg’s getting this award for: the huge strides he’s made since setting up involver.

It’s made us think a bit about what we have managed to achieve over the last few months and realise that actually it’s quite impressive. From both of us being on the dole 6 months ago, we’ve managed to do all this:

– Completed research for DCSF and SSAT

– Presented at an international student voice conference in Slovakia

– Written a CPD module for ACT on student voice and Citizenship

– Set up a national school council awards scheme for Parliament

– Created and and ran a training course for school council trainers from the Czech Republic

– Run loads of training courses for school students and school council co-ordinators including for ASCL and NCSL

– Worked with LAs from across the country to support their training, including Tower Hamlets, Wolverhampton and Salford

– Written new resources for schools on how to improve school councils

– Started to set up partnerships with Changemakers, Centre for Democratic Education, Citizenship Foundation and User Voice

So that’s why Greg’s getting the Square Mile 30under30 London Talent Award.  Which I think is a pretty good set of reasons.

But Greg could be up for a special category award too, so please do wish him luck and have us in your thoughts as you’re at work and we’re being wined and dined at one of London’s fanciest hotels ;)

Square Mile 30 under 30 invitation
This is what Greg's won