Tag: democracy

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Getting class council meetings to work

Involving the whole school

The key issue for school councils is how they involve the whole student body. Not just once a year when representatives are voted on, but on an on-going basis, throughout the year.

For me the core of the answer is in class meetings. Through these every student in the school can be listened to, given a chance to speak and become involved. Not all will want to, and many won’t very often, but the fact that it happens regularly, for everyone makes a huge difference. It is clear that the school (and the school council) are there for you when you need it, and is actively trying to involve you.

Transferring responsibility in secondaries

In secondary schools having these meetings is often seen to be harder than in primaries. The timetable is more prescribed, students move around and swap groups during the day, and so on. Last week when this issue arose at a training session I asked about the class meetings in the teacher’s school. He said that they had got rid of them because they couldn’t rely on the 72 form tutors to run them and pass on the messages. I’ve heard this from so many schools and it makes me sad to think about what this says to the students about how much their form tutors value their opinions. It raises questions of management too, but we’ll leave that to another time.

To me it seems that this is a problem that could be avoided. This shouldn’t be the teachers’ responsibility, it should be the class reps’.  They should each have a simple page to assist them to run a class meeting. It lists decisions made, questions to be asked and a space for raising new issues. This makes sure that every class in the school is involved in the discussions of the school council. All the teacher needs to do is ensure that every other Friday 15 minutes of form time is given over to the class rep (as stated in the school council policy).

So I suggested this to the delegates at the training event. They liked the idea and of course asked whether I had a template for this. “Of course,” I white-lied, “I’ll send it out to you all next week.” So this morning I transferred that template from my head to the computer.

Free template

You can download a PDF or a Word version below. There are instructions for the class rep on the sheet itself. Instructions on how to fill it out are at the bottom of this page.

[gview file=”http://involver.org.uk/dl/class-meeting-feedback-form.pdf” save=”0″]

[download id=”250″]

[download id=”251″]

Instructions for filling it out

I would suggest you take the Word version and then you can type directly in to it. This is how it needs to be filled out (I say ‘school council’ below but it could be any meeting that is being reported back from, such as a year or house council):

  1. In Section 1 you should put the decisions that were taken at the school council. Keep it succinct but clear, as the rep will just read this section out.
  2. You should just be able to copy the ‘Issue’ from your minutes.
  3. The ‘Action/Decision’ should also be from your minutes, so wherever possible it should be an action: WHO is going to do WHAT by WHEN.
  4. The ‘Reason’ is where you can add some explanation. For example, ‘There was general agreement on this from across the school’; ‘There isn’t the money to do this at this time’
  5. In Section 2 you should write the question that the school council wants to ask the whole school. Make the question clear and simple, so you are sure everyone across the school understands it as written.
  6. Depending on the question, you may find it useful to add some options for classes to select from.
  7. You should leave section 3 blank, this is where ideas from the classes are written down.

You then need a system for collecting and collating these sheets. It could be that they are all handed in to the office straight after form time to be collected by the school council secretary later.

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involver blog

‘It didn’t do me any harm….’ But do we hear from those it did?

With all the chat around curriculum and assessment reform, I thought it timely to blog about something that’s been irking me for a while.

Far too often, politicians and commentators are guilty of an over-reliance on their own experience of school. It’s the whole ‘I did XYZ assessment/exam, and IT DIDN’T DO ME ANY HARM’. Despite being simplistic, I think politicians see it as a useful device to come across as passionate, experienced and in touch with ‘normal people’ since it’s harder to argue with someone’s personal experience. That’s all fair enough, but what about those that aren’t heard?

I mean I don’t think that your view of education should be entirely isolated from your immediate experience of it. But that it needs to be balanced with evidence (not cherry-picked international evidence) and strong input from practitioners and students.

Of course, the latest example of this is Gove’s plan to scrap GCSEs that came out yesterday. Gove went school and he had a pretty difficult background. But he did O Levels, and he got good grades. That means that O Levels work, right?

But what about those that aren’t heard?

The point is that we rarely hear from those that the system has failed. What about those who it did actually do some harm to?

They’re not the ones in Sanctuary Buildings, on the benches of the Commons, or shooting the s*@t with Portillo on This Week.

I’m keen to hear more about Gove’s plan, the substance behind it and the link with the Singaporean model. But let’s take personal experience for what it is, the view of the (very successful and influential) individual and not more than that. Sadly, that may be all that counts.

Greg – @gregisanderson

BTW – like the one exam board idea. Professor Frank Coffield was laying into the exam board industry at a recent NUS event I was presenting at. Interesting how Gove’s idea on this is kind of ‘anti-market’.

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involver blog Resources

Social housing provider? Want to engage young people? Take a look!

Our Say Our Way logoWe’ve spent quite a big chunk of this year working on a youth engagement guide for social housing providers with Peabody, Home Group, CBHA and CDHT.

That’s a fancy way of saying that we’ve been collecting loads of good hints and tips to help young people who live in houses owned by the council or housing associations to get more involved in their community.

We’ve been working closely with the Our Say Our Way partners and visited lots of young tenants and staff on estates across the country. It’s been brilliant to work with young people outside of schools. Especially since it has helped us to learn about participation in a slightly different setting from what we’re used to.

You can take a look at the toolkit here:  http://www.oursay-ourway.co.uk/tool-kit.htm.
Peabody logoHome Group logoCBHA logoCDHT logo

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Case Studies involver blog

School council and student voice case study: Woodhouse College

Here’s a student voice case study from Woodhouse College, a sixth-form college in Barnet.

It’s a slightly different setting from the other examples we’ve looked at. However, the underlying principles remain the same; student voice can influence the core work of the college, it’s flexible, and involves everyone.  Importantly, practice is not imposed on staff, but they’re shown the benefits over time.

“We don’t want college to just be a set of A-levels, we want [students] to grow as people.”

Deputy principal

Key benefits

  • Student voice has been a powerful driver for improving the quality of the college. “Modernising the relationships” between staff and students has helped learning and teaching to improve.
  • It broadens and deepens the range of experience that students gain from being at the college. They do not leave with just academic qualifications but with skills of interaction, enquiry and representation.
  • Students have been able to have an impact on all aspects of the college, from the buildings to rules and learning and teaching.

Top advice:

  • Do not impose practice on staff. See where there is good practice and share this through staff meetings and INSET.
  • Get every department to plan targets for developing student voice within their subject area.
  • Create structures that enable students to form and run their own groups based on interest (eg faith groups, sporting and gaming groups, lesbian and gay groups).

Methods used:

Form reps and college council

Each form group elects a representative who becomes their contact to feed back on whole college issues or raise points for improving the college. Form representatives run weekly meetings with their classes which can be just an open forum or may revolve around specific questions that the whole college is discussing. The form representatives meet regularly together with the student support manager and/or deputy principal to collate responses and decide on action plans.

There is also a whole college election for the college council; this means that friendship groups that might be split across form groups – and so be unable to elect one of their number as a representative in any one form – can elect someone who they feel represents them. The college council has its own budget and runs many of the whole college activities. It also works closely with the student support manager and deputy principal and the form reps.

The split between the roles of the form representatives and the college council is not always completely clear, but the form reps are primarily tasked with representing and collecting the views of the whole college and the college council is about creating new opportunities for people to be involved in the life of the college. They are currently working to better define their areas of responsibility and the relationship between them.

Subject focus groups

Certain subject area are very keen to find out how they are serving the learning needs of its students so there are regular surveys and focus groups to draw out this feedback. As this is not uniform across the college those departments that have been getting the most out of it have been encouraged by management to share their experiences in staff meetings and training. By demonstrating the benefits and tried and tested methods of engaging the students’ voices other departments are encouraged to follow suit.

Student-led interest groups

Students in the college are encouraged and supported to set up their own interest groups, clubs and societies. One of the roles of the student support manager is to be positive towards and enable students to create opportunities like this for others. In this way the student experience is deepened for all. Those students who want to set things up develop skills and a sense of agency and those who just want to be part of these groups have far more to choose from.

In this way the college is directly responding to the needs of students. For example, some students wanted a lesbian and gay group, so they were supported to set one up. This is then something they run in the way they feel comfortable with, rather than something which needs to conform to staff expectations of how such a group might run or look.

Volunteering through Envision

Further opportunities for student action and engagement are provided through volunteering projects with the support of the charity Envision. These do not get students to simply help out on someone else’s project, but be entrepreneurial in their own right.

About the college:

Woodhouse College is a sixth form college operating from a single site on the eastern side of the London Borough of Barnet. The college caters for just over 1000 learners. Nearly all 16 to 18 enrolments were on GCE AS/A level courses. A significant proportion of learners travel from other boroughs, particularly Haringey and Enfield.

The catchment area is economically mixed and diverse in terms of social and ethnic backgrounds. In 2005, about half of the learners were from minority ethnic groups, and 56% were female. At age 16, educational achievement is above average in Barnet, but well below average in Haringey and Enfield.

 

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

 

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Case Studies involver blog

School council and student voice case study: Reddish Vale Technology College

Here’ s Reddish Vale Technology College’s approach to student voice, focusing on the ethos of the co-operative movement. You can read more school council case studies/student voice case studies here.

Key benefits of student voice:

  • Community-minded and socially aware students who want to take an active role in the school and local area.
  • Highly politically-literate students who are driven and keen to manage their own projects.
  • Improved relationships between students, staff and students, and the community in general.
  • Improved results in the school; students with five A* to C GCSEs has increased by 31 per cent in the last four years.
  • An ethos built around social justice and the principles of the Co-operative that helps everyone to get along and resolve arguments.

“It’s about changing the world.”

Co-operative Champion, Year 10

Top advice

  • Provide a wide range of ways for students to get involved in school life – only having a school council is not enough. If you can do this, a wide range of pupils will become involved.
  • ‘Hooks’ to get students involved do not just have to centre around content areas (for example the environment or economics), but students with a particular skill (like photography or design) should be encouraged to participate too.
  • Schools should approach everyone to get involved, do not discriminate. Although you cannot force students to get involved, you can remind them and keep approaching them – you never know when they would like to do something.
  • Use something like the Co-operative’s values to involve everyone in a simple and accessible ethos. Student voice and participation becomes far easier when important values are embedded and understood across the school and between students, teachers and governors.
  • Get students involved at the heart of the community, not in isolation of it. The resources and challenges of the local community present real – not simulated – educational opportunities for student voice and action, but also help young people with certain qualifications.

Methods used:

Co-operative Champions

The school originally trained seven students as Co-operative Champions, who have now successfully trained more than 60 students across the school. The Co-operative ethos has helped to inspire students who do not usually get involved to do so.

Co-operative Champions have a jumper with a special logo on so they are recognisable around the school. They get involved in a wide range of events and projects and see their role as “making the world a better place”. They are also working on several partnerships with other schools across the world, like Reddish Vale’s sister school in Kiafeng, China.

ROC Cafe

ROC Cafe takes place every Friday night after school and gives students a safe space to relax, meet new people, and finish the week off on a positive note. ROC stands for “Redeeming Our Communities”, and the cafe opened in April 2010. Over 70 students attend most weeks, and students have had a strong role in planning and running the cafe. As one school council member put it:

“ROC Cafe has been a great success. Students have a good time and leave their troubles at the door.”

School council member, Year 9

School council

The school also has a traditional school council model, with year councils. This has an important role in school improvement and influence school decisions. This model tends to attract students who are more interested in parliamentary-style school improvement.

Ethiopian Coffee Collective

An example of one of many student-led co-operative projects: The school buys coffee directly from a coffee producer in Ethiopia, and sells it in the school. Students are learning important marketing and co-operation skills from this project, and are working hard to see it go from strength to strength.

Community engagement

The school works closely with, and for, the community in Reddish. This improves education opportunities for students, as well as the community itself. The school is also an important resource for the community – Reddish is an area of high socio-economic deprivation, and young people are involved with around 100 of the local areas 150 small businesses.

About the school

Reddish Vale Technology College is a larger than average mixed comprehensive school serving an area of relative disadvantage. The college has had specialist technology status since 1995 and has been a full service extended school since 2005. The majority of the college population are of White British heritage and few students are at the early stages of learning English.

The percentage of pupils eligible for free school meals is higher than the national average, as is the percentage of those with learning difficulties and/or disabilities. The population of the college is stable, with relatively few students joining or leaving the college after entering in Year 7. Attendance is in line with the national average and better than many similar schools.

 

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

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Case Studies

School council and student voice case study: Studfall Junior School

Over to Corby in Northamptonshire for another great school in our amazing school council and student voice case study series!

Key benefits

  • Students are able to communicate in a relaxed and confident manner.
  • Creativity and student voice are seen as interlinked, so this helps the school be creative in how it involves students and in turn students have made lessons more creative.
  • Lessons have become more engaging as a result of student comments in response to consultation on the raising achievement plan (RAP, the school development plan).

“It’s absolutely tangible, you can see it, the confidence of young people and the confidence of teachers to listen to young people. [Pupils] really make their own choices now.”

Year 4 teacher

Top advice

  • What you are doing has to be purposeful. Students need to know what their role is and that that it has potency. Set objectives, goals and targets. It is not effective if the students are not sure why they are doing it.
  • Have weekly class meetings so you can deal with everything that comes up.
  • Make sure that the class representatives have someone in their class to take notes for them. That way they can take a full part in the meeting and still have notes to help them remember everything they need to relay to the school council.
  • Have two-year terms on school council, so you roll over experience and expertise.

Methods used:

Young Consultants

“It’s an amazing learning curve for them. The children involved can speak and think about how they learn and what they want to be learning about.”

Creative Partnerships Co-ordinator

Through Creative Partnerships Studfall has been working with a local secondary school to develop creativity in their curriculum. They feel that rather than creativity just being about the arts, it is about how they involve children in all of their work. So they formed a group of young consultants (YCs) to be the pupil voice within the Creative Partnerships work they were doing. To ensure this was not tokenistic they gave them clear roles and training.

Initially the YCs were involved in interviewing practitioners that the school was considering working with, but it has grown from there. They decided that the YCs should observe the sessions being run by the practitioners so they could further develop their understanding about what skills a good creative practitioner uses. This has then grown in to involving the YCs in planning sessions with adults and researching how Studfall pupils like to learn. This practice is now expanding throughout the school with several teachers working through schemes of work with YCs.

To develop this creativity it has been essential to give pupils the space and freedom to make a lot of choices about their learning.

School council

The school council meets weekly to discuss issues that have come up in the class council meetings (also held weekly). These meetings happen during assembly time, so when one half of the school is having an assembly the other half is meeting in class groups.

Pupils were finding that not everyone was confident or able to speak up during class meetings, so they created two other methods for people to speak more privately to their representatives. Every Wednesday there is a school council surgery. There is also a suggestions box in to which people can either put anonymous suggestions or their names if they would like to speak to a school councillor, but not in front of the whole class.

Whole school involvement in writing the RAP

The school council has been involved in running a consultation on the RAP. Each week they asked all the classes in the school a different question related to an area of the RAP. Their responses have been fed into the RAP and also fed back directly to teachers. Pupils can see the effects in their classrooms and are very pleased.

“Some children were saying there’s not enough challenges at the start of lessons, so they were just sitting there waiting for all the other children to come in. So we talked to our teachers at their team meeting and we told them. And they took on what we said, and now we have lot more, so they’ve listened. Children are actually pleased.”

Year 6 pupil

Buddies

Everyone in the school has a buddy, Year 6 are buddies with Year 4 and Year 5 are buddies with Year 3. These are assigned when the new Year 3 join the school so that they have people who can show them around and help them settle in.

The buddy system extends beyond this though with students doing shared activities and lessons with their buddies and buddies helping one another academically. This relationship persists throughout their time at the school and the pupils clearly enjoy being buddied up, in fact they are arguing at the moment for more time to spend with their buddies.

About the school

The school is much larger than average. A few pupils are from a range of minority ethnic groups. A third of all pupils have special educational needs and/or disabilities which is significantly higher than usual. There is designated special provision for 33 pupils with statements of special educational needs and, together with those in school, they account for 10 per cent of pupils. This is exceptionally high compared to other schools.

The proportion of pupils known to be eligible for free school meals is below average. A breakfast club is organised by the school each morning for approximately 30 pupils. Two headteachers lead and manage the school.