Tag: democracy

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involver blog Resources

Tutor/form time activities to prepare for a school council election

Decisions and action illustration
"You should move that bloomin' great big box", "No, you should", "They should", "Or her"

I wrote these tutor/form time activities a while ago for a school I was working with in Coventry, not sure why I haven’t posted them until now. Often elections are just sprung upon a school without any preparation. No one thinks to explain to the whole school why they should choose to stand, or how they should choose who to vote for. What this ends up with is the same people (and the same kind of people) getting elected every year.

Each one of these short sessions leads people towards an understanding of why they should stand to be a representative, or what they should consider when they are voting.

Download the whole lot here [download id=”229″] or read more …

There are 5 sessions plus the election itself. They are all participative sessions, but the resources should enable any teacher to feel confident facilitating the sessions.:

A) What is democracy?
There’s more to democracy than just voting, it’s an ongoing process. It’s not about others making decision for you, it’s about you being involved in the decision.
[download id=”230″]

B) What is a School Council?
The kinds of things the School Council might deal with.
[download id=”231″]

C) How does the School Council communicate with the whole school?
Explain the structures of the decision-making and the School Council in our school. Explain about recall. Explain structure of form/tutor groups to Year/House council to School Council. and frequency of meetings.
[download id=”232″]

D) What is a representative?
What qualities are needed by a representative?
[download id=”233″]

E) How do our elections work?
The processes for nominating, standing and voting are explained. Explain terminology of closed ballot, etc. Explain that the whole year/house will be electing year/house reps to School Council from the reps who are elected as form/tutor reps.
[download id=”234″]

The eventual voting process is ‘blind’, by which I mean people vote for a manifesto, rather than voting for a person. The school this was written for originally choose to run their election in this way to avoid it being a popularity contest and instead base it on policies and ideas.
[download id=”235″] (PDF) or [download id=”236″] (Word)

Practicalities

You can run any of the sessions on their own, but I think they probably work best as a series.

They’re each 15 minutes long, but could usefully stretch if you had the time.

It says they are for ‘vertical’ tutor groups of about 20, but they should work just as well with larger groups and groups based on age.

Files

You can download all 5 activities (including instructions and all resources) here: [download id=”229″]

Or you can download them individually if you want:

  • [download id=”230″]
  • [download id=”231″]
  • [download id=”232″]
  • [download id=”233″]
  • [download id=”234″]
  • [download id=”235″] (PDF) or [download id=”236″] (Word)

Each download is a zip file containing:

  • Instructions (in Word and PDF format)
  • An (animated) PowerPoint slideshow illustrating the key points
  • PDFs Posters of the essential bits of the slideshow for those who don’t have a projector/IWB
  • Any worksheets (in Word and PDF format)

If you can’t download  zip files and need the files separately send me an email and I’ll get them over to you: asher@involver.org.uk

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involver blog

We’re looking for a web design/development intern..

Hey all,

Over on the join our team page, we’ve got details of an internship we’ve got available. Please give us a tweet, email or call if you’re interested!

Or you could read the details below:

Web Developer/Designer intern

We’re looking for a web developer/designer intern to help us create a new community website for the young people and teachers that we work with. You might be a student web designer, or a recent graduate, that’s keen to build their portfolio and work as part of an exciting start-up.

Info:

involver are an award-winning social enterprise that help schools, colleges and universities to give students more of a say in their education. We help young people to see that democracy, participation and ‘taking part’ isn’t just for the clever or most confident kids, or those who give the right answers. It’s for everyone.

We’re two guys that set up involver just over a year ago now. We’ve won several awards along the way, but most importantly have trained and supported loads of really great young people in schools across the UK and Europe. We’re currently working on high profile projects with Parliament and the Children’s Commissioner, and we’re working hard to take involver to the next level.

Why are involver looking for an intern?

We’re looking for a web developer/designer to help us create a new community website for the young people and teachers that we work with.

What kind of person are we looking for?

We’re looking for a student web designer, or recent graduate, that’s keen to build their portfolio and work as part of an exciting start-up. We’ve got a site spec and think that something like ELGG, Drupal, Ning, or Buddypress can do what we want. We’re just really keen for it not too look and feel really generic!

To do this you’d need great CSS and HTML skills, and a little bit of PHP probably wouldn’t go amiss. Our assumption is that we’d build something on an existing platform (as mentioned above) rather than building the site totally from scratch. So if you’re an energetic and passionate web design student, or a recent graduate, get in touch!

Where are the details?

We’re based in Shoreditch, East London. But don’t worry, we don’t have funny haircuts (except Greg). We’d pay your expenses and sort your lunch out.

In terms of timing, we’re keen to be flexible. You might want to do a day a week for a few months, or do something shorter and more intensive. Or you might like to work remotely. We also adhere to CIPD’s Internship Charter, which you can read here.

Are we nice people?

Yes. And we make nice coffee.

What would you get out of it?

Hopefully, you’d get a great website as part of your portfolio. You’ll meet some good contacts. We’d be really keen to introduce you to the people we work with; a mix of schools, charities, politicians, government people, private sector companies. And take you to events if you want to come.

If you do a good job, we’ll also promote you widely. And give you a great reference. Finally, we’re developing more and more online work, so there’s also a good chance we’d give you paid work in the future.

What do you do next?

  • Get in touch with us at info@involver.org.uk.
  • Or give us a buzz on 020 3411 3294.
  • Or you might want to tweet us @doingdemocracy.

From there, we’ll organise an informal chat to decide if you’re what we’re looking for.

If you want a bit more information about what we do, take a look at www.involver.org.uk.

Or click on the link below for this information in PDF:

[download id=”227″]

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Citizenship involver blog News Student Voice Assistant's blog Twitter

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.