Hard work (and many late nights) over the last week has meant that we are pretty much done with the pupil voice case studies that we are writing for the SSAT/DCSF. The schools and LAs that took part (thanks!) are receiving them to sign them off. Be good to get it all wrapped up soon, and we hope it will be helpful to schools./LAs.
Good news 2:
At the start of October, we’ve been invited to Slovakia to take part in a three-day meeting about pupil voice in Europe.
They have been working on a school council project called ‘It’s your choice, use your voice’, and want to hear more about how things are approached in the UK. There’s potential for future cooperation too. Should be a great experience, and lots of fun – full blog to come – take a look at http://www.rcm.sk/en/news.
Also had interesting meetings with NCB, Send for it/Portland (the company who have bought School Councils UK) and our friend Jem (http://twitter.com/_jemima) on Search Engine Optimisation stuff. 95% of this went over my head but in a stroke of luck, Asher is a web geek, and he managed to follow things.
In other news, working at home in the kitchen is difficult – I keep eating EVERYTHING.
A simple form to help you plan your project and then make sure it’s running smoothly.
Once you’ve set your aims using the SMART Matrix, write down each of the tasks that will make up your project.
Who is going to be responsible for each one?
When does it need to be done by?
What help will you need?
Created by Asher Jacobsberg at School Councils UK.
Use the ‘More’ button to print or download (‘save’) this resource. Action Planning Form
Anyway, the point of these days (if you ever hear about them) is to spur you into action. So what are you doing to help young people today? The 2009 theme is ‘sustainability’:
Sustainability does not only refer to maintaining environmental balance and renewal.Sustainability encapsulates three facets of life: the environment, society and the economy. We live our lives in the overlaps and intersections of these facets, and our actions and attitudes help shape them. Their changing shapes in turn affect the way we are able to live our lives. The negative effects of unsustainable behaviour are not easily contained. As has been proven by the global crises in food, the economy and the environment, the concept of the global village has gone beyond being a useful analogy to being a hard reality, making clear the need toadopt a global sense of social responsibility.
This chimes in very nicely with what we’re trying to do with involver. We’re interested in sustainable participation, and using participation to improve sustainability. We’ve all seen apparently amazing school councils crumble when a great student or teacher who knew how it all worked and was helping steer it left. We want to ensure that schools put structures in place to ensure that things don’t rely on one person, but are established in such a way that everyone shares the load, benefits and the ability to run it.
One small thing you can do to help young people is just tell us your ideas about what support you think involver should be offering to schools, LAs and young people to help them enjoy getting involved. Post a comment below.
The most telling question/statement at the launch of the Youth Citizenship Commission‘s final report came from a delegate representing the National Foundation for Educational Research (NFER), he suggested something along the lines of, “Wouldn’t it be ironic if the Government’s response to this report is to do nothing? What would that tell young people about the limits of their influence and citizenship?” All Government commissions run the risk of being ignored by Government, but the questioner was right, it would be particularly pointed if the recommendations of this report were not taken up. The findings of the Commission were that (like other groups in society) there is a disillusion with politics because young people do not feel they are listened to. Arguably what is worse than not being listened to at all, is being told you’ve got the chance to have your say and have an influence and then to have that views dismissed anyway. (I see this all the time in schools with school councils where there are boundaries to what they can do, but these are never discussed or communicated with the pupils, they are just told ‘No’ when that issue arises).
So, whilst I think the Commission has done a great job and made many important recomendations (not least about the need for standards for school and class councils), ultimately whether this has any real benefit will come down to the Government’s actions: inaction will be failure.
