Tag: democracy

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involver blog Student Voice Assistant's blog

Being a Student Voice Assistant

This is the first of a series of blog posts that we have asked Alison to write for us, to give us an insight into what it’s like to be employed as a Student Voice Assistant in your gap year and to keep us to up to date with what’s going on at a school that has excellent student voice practice and we love working with. We hope you find her experiences interesting and entertaining.

Asher and Greg

Hello all,

Welcome to my first blog! My name is Alison Seymour. I am 18 years old and last summer I completed my A levels at Little Heath School in Reading. I now work at the school as Student Voice Assistant and strange as it may have seemed at first, the staff room has now become like a second home. I have been asked to write a fortnightly blog for Involver and I am so excited to get started and share with you my experience of student voice.

Over my time as a student some of my roles included chairing the School Council and later our Student Voice Leaders, being on the Sixth Form Committee and also groups that focus on teaching and learning and how the buildings and physical structure of the school can be developed to enhance learning.

In my role as Student Voice Assistant, I now have the opportunity to work together with young people to allow them to experience and learn what I have. It is a privilege to see how they can develop and learn skills that can be used beyond their school career. Pupil voice and youth participation is an amazing way of allowing young people to make a difference. It might be in their school, local community or simply achieving a personal goal. That, in a nut shell, is what I believe to be central to pupil voice.

A really exciting part of my job is to plan our annual Student Voice Conference. This year it takes place on the 2nd February and, since being back from the Christmas holidays, much preparation has begun. We take 150 students out of school and spend the day doing different workshops and also have a question panel in the afternoon. It is an excellent opportunity to spend time with a variety of students discussing topics that are at the heart of school life.

This year the conference has three main strands. Our STARS (Students As ResearcherS) group will continue onto the next stage of their research. 40 students have spent the last year looking at different areas of teaching and learning, such as classroom environment, praise and reward and “what makes a good lesson?”, and how, we as a school, can celebrate success but also, improve these areas. The second strand is looking at Student Leadership and how we can develop a competency framework that allows students to be recognised for the ways that they show leadership. Thirdly, looking at student Rights and Responsibilities and how it feeds into a Language for Learning.

I am really excited to be a part of this day and am so interested to see the thoughts that the students have, because more often than not they are right on the money!

I’ll be back in two weeks! See you then :)

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involver blog News Twitter

1,000 muddled words on the Big Society

We’re a new (non-partisan) social enterprise trying to find our way in what seems like a very Big Society. Here’s some thoughts on our experience:

Outlook

The Big Society separates the third sector ‘moaners’ from the third sector optimists. It’s divided those who look back fondly on higher spending of the Labour government (who can’t quite come to terms with what’s happening), from those who are looking forward, getting on it with, and making the most of the opportunities the Big Society presents.

To be fair, I could be being a bit naive here.

If I was working for an organisation facing substantial cuts, I’d obviously see it differently. And from our position as a new and small organisation, this big new idea, introduced by a new government, means the playing field is a bit more level for us to get involved. Although competition is high, we’re not trying to muscle into a policy or administration with years of well-developed third sector links.

Naive or not, and without sounding like a cheerleader, I think it’s important that the third sector looks forward to make the most of the policy landscape of the day.

Plain talking

Having seen some amazing new branding from a few charities, I think we’re beginning to see the new administration and Big Society freeing up the sector to talk in plain English. It’s refreshing to see organisations just saying what they do. Saves time when you’re trying to find out. The freedom of not having to align your key message to seven different policy initiatives is good, regardless of how worthy those initiatives are. I do wonder, however, if over time the Big Society might get filled out with new buzzwords which we all start gradually mentioning as time goes by.

A big problem with plain talking about what we do, giving young people an influence in their education, is that I don’t really think the Conservatives will think it fits as part of their traditional approach to education.

That’s okay though, the Big Society doesn’t mean that we’re going to change what we believe in.

Disclaimer: I’m not sure if this is a Big Society thing. The freedom from buzzwords could happen when any new Government comes in. I’m not sure, I’ve only known Labour.

Vague

I’ve lost count of the number of coalition ministers who I’ve seen thrown by the simplest of questions; ‘what is the Big Society?’

No wonder the conference hall was strangely silent during this section of Cameron’s speech. It’s not very inspiring if the ‘salesmen and women’ of the policy are so unclear on what the policy actually is. I think this lack of clarity leads to two things: people who are involved in social action and participation get annoyed because they think the Government are implying that these are new ideas; and those who aren’t involved just switch off.

I get the impression that people working in the sector have got a better idea of what the Big Society might be, than the Government themselves. That might be not such a bad thing.

On the positive side, this vagueness means that third sector organisations have an opportunity to use more plain English (see above).

And although there are headlines about the Big Society (somewhere), it seems like the details are very much up for grabs.
I heard Gove talk last night at a Teaching Leaders graduation event. I’d talked about this with a friend recently, and – whether you like him or not – – seeing him give his speech made me agree that he comes across as very ideological.

I feel the Government know what they want to do, but probably needs some help from us to get there. Frustrated civil servants agree, so I guess what I’m saying is that the lack of detail presents opportunities.

N.B. Despite this, from what we’ve seen I think there are questions about how vague the Big Society actually is. Take the National Citizen Service pilots, for instance. Innovation was encouraged, but only within a very restricitve and scheduled delivery model!

Talking

Big Society has led to more people from more organisations talking to one another. That’s definitely a good thing, because I think the third sector is often pretty bad at collaborating. It’s understandable in some ways; two private organisations come together to make money. It’s more complicated to get together to ‘make more good’, although a lot more important.

Being engaged with the National Citizen Service – in a very minor way – has been a useful experience, because it’s got us talking with a range of organisations who we’d like to work with in the future. This has happened because of tight deadlines and the need for consortium bids. It’s great for us to be getting the word out about our work. These links wouldn’t have been made without the Big Society.

On the other hand, tight deadlines sometimes lead to desperation. To some extent, you can see this happening with the National Citizen Service pilot deadlines. Ill-thought through partnerships, could easily lead to poor delivery. We’ll see.

And even if the Government can get the message across to people what the Big Society is, the speed at which they’re trying to prove it’s a good idea could undermine everything.

Motives

We need to cut UK spending – most of us are agreed on that . Obviously the rate at which we do it is up for debate, but it needs to happen.

This confuses the idea of the Big Society for many because they think it’s designed to save money. I think that’s a very big part of it, but also part of the Conservatives natural desire for a smaller state. What is worrying is when the first bit of that sentence is used to sneak in the second: cuts being used as a reason to do things that the Conservatives really want to do anyway.

The Government’s response to the Browne Review exemplifies this: it’s not just about creating more money for universities, it’s about fundamentally changing who pays for higher education in the UK. Somehow, they’ve got the Lib Dem’s fooled.

The Conservatives should be honest about their intentions, and this helps to undermine the idea of the Big Society for me.

Greg Sanderson

PS. Love to hear your thoughts using the comments below..

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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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Resources

School council reps’ tookit

I wrote this little pocket guide for the school councils of some secondary schools I’m working with. It should be useful to anyone who’s interested in becoming a rep (representative) or is one already and wants some tips on how to make a good job of it.

Most schools have reps as part of the way they run student voice, often class reps, year or house council reps and then even school council reps who might meet with people from other schools.

But being a rep’s not easy, so here are some tips and guides on how to do it well.

Inside you’ll find answers to all of these questions:

  • What is a rep (representative)?
  • What’s good student voice?
  • What does a rep do?
  • How do I collect views?
  • How do I create change?
  • How do meetings work?
  • What should I ask in meetings?
  • How do I run a meeting?
  • What are minutes?
  • Can meetings be fun?
  • How do I present an idea?
  • How do we get things done?

It’s designed as an A5 booklet so if you print it our double-sided onto A4 all the pages should match up

Download the PDF here:

[download id=”220″]

As with all of our work, we release it under a Creative Commons Attribution ShareAlike licence, so if you want to remix it – add your own logos, etc. – you can do that with the Publisher files here:

[download id=”221″]

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involver blog

Does a youth council have to look like a council?

Teddy bears at a meeting
I've never been to a meeting quite like this, but I have been to ones where everyone is as engaged as these inanimate objects.

A couple of weeks ago I was approached by the chair of the syanagogoue I attended when I was younger. She asked me to set up a youth council with a bunch of really enthusiastic young people who have just completed their Kabbalat Torah (a kind of confirmation – a furtherance of the Bar Mitzvah).

Now, these young people are able and committed, but not neccessarily committed to the idea of sitting in meetings, but really who is? My Dad’s still an active member of the synagogue, by which I mean he goes to a lot of meetings, sits on various committees, but does he find them interesting, of course not. They’re boring and cumbersome, but they do allow him to see many of the friends he has at synagogue and he gets to contribute to the way the community runs.

So, when the Chair asked me to set up a youth council, I checked with her that this was what the young people themselves said they wanted.

‘Well, they didn’t say that exactly, but they did say they wanted to give something back and keep in contact,’ was the reply.

‘And when you say you want them to be a ‘council’, do you want them to represent the views of the other young people?’ I went on.

‘I don’t know, I hadn’t really thought of that.’

So I thought to myself, ‘really, what would work here for everyone?’

I decided that of course I didn’t have the answer, that would come from meeting the young people and asking them.  So we arranged to meet one evening to discuss what interest they really had in this whole process.

We ate and chatted and discovered that they already did a lot for the synagogue, most of them volunteered as teaching assistants in the Cheder (Sunday School), one of them helped run the youth club and they’d all run a service together recently. What they really didn’t want was to feel like they were being dragged back to synagogue to eat up even more of their free time.

They were very keen though to have an excuse to get together and enjoy each other’s company and were happy to do that at the synagogue. They suggested getting together on a week night to cook for each other, eat and watch films on the synagogue’s big screen. They’re happy to organise something like this and thought that after the first one they’d invite the Chair and new Rabbi to attend for a bit to chat informally about what they wanted from (and wanted to put in to) the community.

They were happy too if the adults from the synagogue council wanted to ask them the odd question, that they might discuss over dinner and send back a response.

We discussed what would put them off coming and they resolved not to use those methods (including standing up in assembly to announce ‘an exciting new …’) to promote this event. They’re communicating with their peers in the ways that they like to communicate. I’m just on hand to offer support if they want it.

Is this exactly what the Chair expected? No, but I think in the end she’ll get a more committed, engaged group of young members, because they’re creating this experience for themselves, rather than having a structure imposed on them by adults.

Is this what the young people expected? Also not, I think they thought they’d go away with another person chasing them about coming to volunteer at another thing at the synagogue. What they got was an opportunity to keep up with their friends, and create something at the synagogue which they have ownership of, rather than just another thing they participate in.

When we’re setting up councils in schools, synagogues, churches, towns or wherever, what we want them to do is engage people in the way those communities run. So we need to set them up in a way that reflects that. Don’t make the method for engagement un-engaging, that makes sense, right?

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involver blog

involver ‘thinkpiece’ for LSN’s magazine. Learner voice: why bother?

Here’s a recent thinkpiece (fancy way of saying essay) for LSN’s Post-16 Magazine. They’re a great organisation that focus on post-16 education, that we plan to work with in the future.

I’ve mentioned bits and bobs of this in blog posts before, so if any of it feels familiar, that’s why.

Learner voice: why bother?

College councils. Student voice. School councils. Learner voice. Giving young people a say in how their school or college is run. Sounds like effort, doesn’t it? Students are there to be educated, not to take part in it, right?

So why do so many schools bother with it? Because the Government says you have to listen to pupils? Because Ofsted might come and chat to your school or college council? Because some kids had a couple of good ideas and you might as well give it a go? Because some kids want to practice being politicians, and you need to give them a way to do that?

Let’s be clear : schools and colleges present a unique opportunity for young people to learn about democracy.

And let’s be double – clear: this opportunity is being missed by too many.

Student voice and school or college councils are often tokenistic. Young people are told that they have influence (but only the cleverest or most confident are allowed to use it), that they are listened to (as long as they give the right answer), and that they are free to talk about what they want (but can’t actually do anything to make things better).

As a social enterprise, our approach is to help educational institutions to make the most of this opportunity, challenge tokenism, and help get more young people involved.

Very simply, we want young people to understand how their ideas can turn into actions which can turn into improvements for themselves and others. Learning democracy by ‘doing democracy’. Less sitting back and moaning about things, and more action!

I was working in Islamia Primary School in Brent recently, helping their new student voice team to plan for next year. One of the big ideas that came up was trying to get mirrors in the girls’ toilets. The girls’ headscarves were coming loose during the school day, and they had no mirrors to check if they were on properly. During their first term after their summer break, the team plan to get going on this idea. They are six years old.

Now this might just be a few mirrors, but if young people can see how they can influence their lives and surroundings from a young age this plants important seeds. As they become secondary age students they will believe that they can take action and change things, and then university students will too.

Young people will find it more difficult to have the desire or to understand how they can change things in adult life if they’ve had no practice! Or if they’ve been kept in a simulated democratic world where they are ‘listened to’ but never have the experience of negotiating, collaborating and struggling to achieve their own, shared aims.

And this should never be just about training the next generation of politicians – if you know how to ‘plan’, ‘do’ and ‘reflect’ a project with a group of people, that is useful whatever you choose to do in life. That’s part of what we do: not just training the politicians of tomorrow, but the citizens of today.

It’s also very important that students connect learning about the same concepts. We’re all agreed that democracy and empowerment are important concepts, right?

So let’s use every opportunity we can to connect what we can learn about in the news, in the curriculum, with what we do in student voice. It’s about connecting what others do, with what we do.

Let’s reflect on MPs expenses, by talking about school councillor expenses; let’s discuss the coalition government by talking about how easy it is to decide things by committee; let’s think about the civil rights movement and suffragettes when planning a student voice election. We grasp things best when we understand them from different angles.

Not seeing these links can undermine everything. You might be less inspired about by Barack Obama’s democratic journey if your ‘democratic’ college council is just the ten brightest pupils, picked by the head teacher or college director!

So let’s be clear: a healthy democracy needs curious, active people. A healthy democracy needs healthy democratic education, and schools and colleges are central to that.

Let’s not be complacent.

Greg Sanderson

________

Greg Sanderson is co-founder of involver,  a social enterprise that help young people to ‘do democracy’ in schools and colleges. We challenge tokenism in leaner voice, make school or college councils smart and active, and support young people to co-construct their education. For free resources and advice, training and tools to support this, then come and visit us at www.involver.org.uk.