Tag: Conferences & events

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Newsletter 9: Weddings, MPs and Smart School Councils

Hello from involver – newsletter number 9

Sorry there was no newsletter last month but we got a bit distracted by Asher’s wedding. We promise it won’t happen again (at least until Greg gets married).

Resource: Get a politician in to your school
This free resource from the Hansard Society shows you how to get the most out of bringing an MP or Peer in to your school. There are also tips for how to get them there in the first place. Order your copy here:
http://www.hansardsociety.org.uk/blogs/citizenship_education/archive/2010/10/28/2779.aspx

Resource: Young people’s governance in schools
A new short guide from Participation Works that looks full of useful information for those involved in running schools. You can buy a copy here:
http://www.participationworks.org.uk/resources/how-to-involve-children-and-young-people-in-school-governance

Video: Challenging educational paradigms through student voice
Project REAL is the way in which this school in Australia is trying to reassess the way they teach and learn. These two videos from the students explain how they’re doing it and why they feel it’s important. Really worth a watch:
http://ihsprojectreal.wordpress.com/

Research: Student voice reading list
We met with ARK last week and they wanted us to persuade them that student voice should be central to the school’s they’re setting up in Uganda. We created this list of research on the subject for them. What have we missed?
http://involver.org.uk/2011/07/student-voice-reading-list/

Community: Smart School Councils help each other out
The Smart School Councils Community is a new charity we’re setting up along with students and teachers from 15 founder schools. It will be free for anyone to join and share good practice on how to involve your whole school in student voice. Watch this space:
http://www.smartschoolcouncils.org.uk

Awards: John Bercow awards best school council projects
Body image, anti-vandalism, LGBT sensitivity, classroom pets and Ecostars projects were selected by the Speaker of the House of Commons (and friends) as the winners of the Speaker’s School Council Awards 2011. We had a great time helping out at the ceremony:
http://involver.org.uk/2011/07/a-fun-day-at-the-speakers-school-council-awards/

And now we’re off to help judge Haringey Junior Citizens Debate, which should be great fun,

Greg and Asher

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

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Newsletter 8: Planning projects, factory schools and student voice good practice

Hello from involver – newsletter number 8

We hope all your chocolate eggs haven’t melted in the sunshine.

Resource: Setting targets and planning a project

These free downloads are something we created for Parliament’s Education Service (PES) to help schools prepare for entering the Speaker’s School Council Award. It’s the second in a series of four sessions to help school councils run projects. The download is in three parts, one at the bottom of this page and the next two on page two:
http://speakersschoolcouncil.org/resources

Video: MPs’ and school councillors’ tips on project planning

We’ve also made these six videos for PES to help schools think about why school councils are important and how to plan and run projects. There are loads of great tips and inspiration for any school council or action team. Watch them all here:
http://involver.org.uk/2011/04/project-planning-and-evaluation-videos-for-school-councils/

Competition: Winner of free half-day of training

Welcome to all our new subscribers who signed up over the last couple of months. The winner of the half-day training is Morgan from Warwickshire, congratulations to them and commiserations to everyone else. Here’s what you could have won:
http://involver.org.uk/school-council-training-and-student-voice-support/

Article: How running your school like a factory can make it more creative

A lot has been said about how schools are too much like factories to be effective, but one school we’ve come across recently is using the ideas of industrialist, W. Edwards Deming to make their school more responsive to student voice. Here are our thoughts:
http://involver.org.uk/2011/04/how-running-a-school-like-a-factory-can-improve-student-voice/

Research: Student voice good practice

We came across the school above as part of the mad rush around the country we’ve been on over the last month to complete research for the Office of the Children’s Commissioner (OCC) in to good practice in student voice. We’ve seen some exciting and inspiring stuff, and it’s all written up now. We’ll be sure to share it with you as soon as the OCC publish it. See more of the OCC’s work:
http://www.childrenscommissioner.gov.uk/

News: School council chair runs AV debate

Soon Britain will be deciding on whether it wants a new voting system. We think this is a great opportunity for schools to look at how democracy works in their school. This school council has taken up this challenge and is hosting a debate between two local MPs on the Alternative Vote (AV) vs First Past the Post (FPTP):
http://www.getwokingham.co.uk/news/s/2091605_av_debate_at_ranelagh_school
Resources on AV/FPTP to use in your school: http://www.ycsay.co.uk/freeresources.html

Resource: Pilot the Student voice-o-meter

We’ve created a new online tool to help students research student voice in their school, understand who it’s working for and who it’s not. We’re looking for a few schools to pilot it. Let us know if you’re interested by emailing info@involver.org.uk. Find out more here:
http://www.studentvoiceometer.org.uk

Campaign: Every1counts participatory budgeting in schools

We believe that if schools really value student voice they need to involve students in  how the school spends its money, so we’ve teamed up with the Participatory Budgeting Unit and the Citizenship Foundation to support schools to involve the whole school in this process. We are currently seeking funding from the Paul Hamlyn Foundation to enable us to create training and resources. Find out more and sign-up to be considered for the pilot:
http://www.every1counts.org.uk

Hope you have fun over the extra long weekend!

Greg and Asher

P.S. Greg was very keen for us to put in an egg-related joke. I hope you’ll agree that I showed eggscelent taste in resisting the temptation to do so.

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

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How can you encourage more people to get involved in your Student Voice?

This is a question that I am sure many schools struggle with, and I’d be lying if I said Little Heath hadn’t faced this problem over the years as well. The answer to this question can be the key to success in student voice.

It might be that the attendance at your school council is dwindling, or the uptake for your new peer mentoring scheme is low, or maybe you are struggling to keep your student voice “cool”. I don’t claim to have a definitive answer but I hope to offer some practical advice that you may find useful.

Publicise it! Ensure that the students know what is going on, what your plans are and how they can be involved. Go into assemblies once every half term, produce a mini newsletter, create posters and display boards around school, go into their tutor times, send letters home. You name it, it’s possible. But most crucially get out and speak to them. Chat with them about what student voice is, what activities are available, get them to share their thoughts with you, get their advice.

Be inclusive. Don’t hand pick the good students or reject the more challenging ones when they volunteer. Each one has something to offer. It is important to go out to your students as well as expecting them to come to you. At Little Heath, our Student Voice Leaders (a small group of senior students who each take a lead on an area of Student Voice) regularly go into tutor groups to chat informally to students about their lessons and other areas of school life, but also to share with them what is going on in the student voice world.

One of the greatest, and most effective, outcomes of student voice is that students feel valued. Ensure that everyone knows that your school council, for example, is there, not just because you have to have one but because you want to hear what your students have to say. Show them that their work has impact, that it makes a difference and that it can be rewarding. This gives students a sense of ownership and that their school council is their school council.

Informal structure as well as formal structure can work. Elections are great but don’t always work for everyone. Having an informal place where suggestions can be made and students can show an interest is also really helpful. This can either be a place that allows students to drop in and share ideas with you or it might even be a suggestion box that is checked regularly.

These are just a few ideas but I hope that in some way they are helpful to you.

Alison,
Student Voice Coordinator
Little Heath School

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Making a great student voice conference even better – part 2

This is part two of a blog on Little Heath’s Student Voice conference. You can read the first part here. This concentrated on the older students who were organising the conference, and the adults that supported them.

This second part will look at the experience of some of the younger pupils who are more recently involved with student voice. Let’s focus on student voice in learning since it’s one of the areas that the school does amazingly well. This centres around the STARs project – Students as Researchers.

The STARs (students as researchers) project is a key part of student voice in Little Heath. It’s designed to give the students an influence in their learning and school-life. Importantly, this isn’t based on whim, but research. Even more importantly, this research is student-led.

This first group looked at the types of homework that students liked most. Lots of students were complaining about their homework so they worked on a questionnaire to send out to pupils. The results were presented to Governors and SLT.

Here’s two year 9 students telling us about their STARs project. As opposed to the first group, this project focuses on classroom teaching. It looks at specific subjects: English, History and ICT in years 7 and 8. A crucial area to look at, and some very useful findings:

This group looked at the help that is available for students within the school. Here’s a member of the group talking us through the teacher questionnaire that they organised, and what will happen to their ideas:

Members of the STARs team can get involved year after year. These two members led a successful project last year, and are doing a first plan for their anti-bullying project this year:

Lots of the learning from the STARs project goes into a booklet which is given out to the school to publicise their work. Here’s the team in charge of making it:

Ongoing reflections on Homework:

Year 7 pupils (I think) talking us through their planner/homework diary/timetable.

They’re encouraged to reflect on what they’ve learnt and their homework, if there was too much or if they really enjoyed it. Teachers would then look at this. It’s a simple but good way to encourage reflection on learning and start a conversation with teachers.

Student voice in school planning:

Year 7 pupils on the Buildings and Environment group looking at how to improve this aspect of their school. They’re starting point is how they would make their school into the ‘dream school’ and they’re drawing a big map. They’re clearly getting a lot from approaching this in a visual way.

Key quote ‘it makes it come to life’

So that’s a taster of some of the great work being worked on by the younger pupils at Little Heath. The range of student voice work is really amazing, and if you’re interested, take a look at my original post from last year’s conference for a bit of analysis into why it works so well.

Well done to everyone involved :)

Greg

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Making a great Student Voice conference even better – Part 1

Another year, another amazing Student Voice Conference at Little Heath School in Reading.

I thought I’d write a blog that reflected on what we saw and learnt last year. It’s split into two parts because I took LOADS of videos.

So the ‘building blocks’ for success in Little Heath are still the same and still very apparent. Pupils feel open – and are supported by teachers and other pupils – to suggest ideas (good or bad!), there’s a variety of ways for students to get involved, and the support from staff is strong. In terms of staff support, the school has managed to build on what they provided last year.

Mr Linz (Student Voice Coordinator) is now expertly supported by Alison, the new Student Voice Assistant. Last year, Alison was a pupil at the school, but this year she’s a paid member of staff. It’s her job to support Mr Linz, and use her experience as a student to get lots of people involved and improve the school.

She’s very kindly writing a blog for us which you can read here and here. It’s really clear from how the students describe them that they make a great team and helps the school to build on the success that they’ve had. Well done!

As usual, I took some videos of some of the work that the school is doing. You’ll have to excuse my video skills.

First off, we have Bailey,  a year 8 student who I’d talked to last year. This year Bailey was really clear on the role that the school’s strong student voice ethos had played in helping him and others. He’s got some great advice on helping shy pupils to get involved. This is something that sits at the heart of what we’re trying to do as an organisation, and it’s great to see Bailey describe this in such a powerful way:

Some great stuff from Jack in Year 11 telling us about the day, and the skills he learnt as a Student Voice Leader. He also stresses the role of a passionate student voice coordinator to support everyone:

Here’s Dalton, from Year 12. He’s got a rather fetching shirt, and is on the buildings committee and helps out on travel to and from school. Back in year 9, he was part of the selection panel to appoint a new head teacher. Key quote ‘being a student voice leader is not all plain-sailing‘. Here his thoughts below:

It’s also important to look at the role of other staff supporting student voice, here’s Ms. Broadhead and Mr. Naylor – a Teaching Assistant at the school – talking about their experience. As a NQT, Ms. Broadhead’s got some interesting reflections on the lip service that many schools pay to student voice:

Here’s Lucy and Daniela talking about the support that older pupils give to year sevens. It’s called the SMILE group, and shows how peer mentoring is important to the school:

Finally for part 1, here’s a short video of Tom working with a group of year 8s. We saw Tom last year explaining what was happening at the conference. I’m sure he won’t mind me saying he was a bit nervous! This year, he’s expertly leading a group on the importance of courage as a leader, and what that means. Great stuff!

In part two, I’ll be talking to more of the younger pupils at the school. Stay tuned and thanks again to Little Heath for inviting me along.

Greg

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Student Voice Conference by Alison, Student Voice Assistant

Here’s Alison’s second blog, about the amazing Student Voice Conference at Little Heath! I’ve got a few videos from the day too, which I’ll upload soon.

It’s been an exciting couple of weeks!

Wednesday 2nd February was our annual Student Voice Conference at Little Heath. If I’m being honest I can’t believe it is over for another year! But there is still lots of work to keep us busy.

The conference was a real success.

Alok Sharma, MP for Reading West opened the day and encouraged the students in the importance of youth participation. The three workshops that took place were really thought provoking. Some really interesting ideas have come up as new projects for the STARS (Students As Researchers) to research. A particular favourite of mine is the idea of students having influence in teachers planning and having a say in the content of their lessons and the way it is taught.

The second workshop on student leadership got students thinking about the things that they want to be recognised for and how this can fit into a framework. For example, how the framework could be based around bronze, silver and gold levels. There were so many ways that students would like to be recognised for leadership, not just in Student Voice. They came up with ideas like Duke of Edinburgh, leading reading clubs and doing community service. It is exciting that the content and design for this framework is going to come completely from the students.

The third workshop looked at student Rights and Responsibilities. This linked into behaviour and how students want to feel safe. In addition, they looked at what helps them in the classroom to have a more effective learning experience. The students were also really forthcoming with ideas and how to refresh the schools Code of Conduct document into something more student friendly.

A question panel in the afternoon was a good chance for the students to ask questions to some of the staff. Questions about what they think makes a good learning environment, curriculum developments, advice for pathways after leaving Little Heath and also views on learning from former students.

Overall, the day was a credit to the enthusiasm of the students and their eagerness to be influential in their own education.