Tag: elections

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involver blog Resources

Primary school council policy

The new headteacher of Welbourne Primary School in Tottenham – the school I’m a governor of – has asked me to help set up a new school council. My first step is to come up with a draft policy that I’ll use as the starting point for discussions with staff and pupils.

Download this sample policy to adapt and use: [download id=”240″]

I’m obviously trying to keep it short and simple so everyone can understand it. Here’s my first attempt. I’ll update it as the discussions progress. Do you have any comments or suggestions?

The 10 Commandments from flcikr/jbtaylor
Well, I couldn't quite get it down to 10, but it's what we're aiming for.

What is our school council for?

  • The school council is about:
    • Learning to work together
    • Learning about democracy
    • Learning how to play a positive role in our community
  • The school council’s job is to involve everyone, not do everything. It needs to get everyone:
    • Finding things they want to change
    • Coming up with ways to make them better
    • Putting those ideas in to action
    • Seeing what works (evaluating)

How does our class council work?

  • Our whole class has a meeting every 2 weeks on [day] at [time].
  • We decide what we’re going to talk about the day before the meeting, so everyone has time to think.
  • A different person runs the meeting each time (with help from the teacher if they need it).
  • A different person takes notes each time (with help from the teacher if they need it).
  • We choose two people from our class to go to a whole school council meeting.

What will the school council do for our class?

  • When you give your class representative an idea, she or he will:
    • Note it down
    • Take it to the next school council meeting
    • Tell you what is happening to your idea within two weeks
  • The school council will try to make your idea happen by getting:
    • Permission
    • Support
    • Money
    • Time
  • If they can’t they will tell you why not.
  • If they can, they will want your class to help make your idea happen.

What will teachers and TAs do for the school council?

  • Make sure meetings happen when they are supposed to.
  • Support pupils to run meetings.
  • The Headteacher will answer all the school council’s questions within 1 week.
  • If the Headteacher has to say ‘no’ to anything, she will explain why.

Now, this isn’t as short and snappy as I’d hoped, but I think it’s a good start. We’ll see what we can cut out as we go, without losing the essence of it. We’ll also be trying to create a pictorial version. I’m sure doing that will help us work out what’s really essential.

Download this sample policy to adapt and use: [download id=”240″]

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involver blog Resources

‘How to’ guide on student voice

Here’s the first part of our findings from a brilliant research project that we worked on for the Children’s Commissioner.

It’s all about best practice in student voice, and here’s a short ‘How to’ guide with as much advice as we could possibly fit onto two pages. Feel free to download and share.

You can download here: [download id=”237″]

The research came from in-depth research in 16 schools across England who have great student voice, and looking at the values, principles and practices that underpin their success. Great to see so many and varied benefits that schools are seeing. There’s a full report to be issued in a few weeks.

Thank you to the schools that took part, and for the Children’s Commissioner for getting us in to do such a great project!

Greg

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Citizenship involver blog News

School council elections: compilation of free resources

It’s the beginning of the school term.

Loads of school council elections are taking place across the country, but many of them aren’t organised as well as they could be. 

Often this is perfectly understandable; running the election is sometimes thrust upon an unsuspecting teacher, so here’s a complication of the resources we’ve got to help you out!

1. A set of 15 minute short tutor time activities to help plan a school council election:

http://involver.org.uk/2011/03/school-council-election-tutor-form-time-activities

2. Practical steps on running a school council election, setting it up and questions about if you REALLY need to have one:

http://involver.org.uk/2010/08/school-council-elections-planning-for-success/

3. Our school council reps toolkit might help students understand what’s involved as a school councillor (sometimes if they’re not sure what’s involved, they won’t put themselves forward).

http://involver.org.uk/2010/10/school-council-reps-tookit/

4. It’s important to have a think about what type of school council model (and therefore election) you need to have:

http://involver.org.uk/2011/07/school-councils-and-democracy-pick-your-model-carefully/

5. Once you’ve got your reps, then use this ‘getting to know your reps’ game:

http://involver.org.uk/2009/09/getting-to-know-your-reps-game-template/

6. Try and avoid this!

http://involver.org.uk/2009/09/school-council-election-fraud-as-it-happens/

And remember, you can always email us if you want some help or advice. Or feel free to suggest a new election resource for us to write.

Greg

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School councils – welcome back!

Hello everyone,

Welcome back to school. Hope you all had a fun summer!

To give you a quick  idea of what we’ve been up to…..

In between lovely holidays to Loch Ness, Aberdeen, Rugby and France, we’ve been doing lots of work on the Smart School Council Community, a charity we’re setting up and supporting.

It’s led by fifteen founding schools who we know have AMAZING student voice/school councils. Any young person, teacher or governor can join for FREE and get some help (or help others) with your school council. Good deal, right?

Head over to www.smartschoolcouncils.org.uk to get involved.

As a social enterprise based in Tottenham, we’ve been busy helping out after the riots. As well as donating and sorting clothes, Asher’s been writing about the subject and also been on the radio talking about it.  That second link features a hilarious picture of him.

Related to these events, and the questions about education and engagement in the UK today, we’re working on an exciting new film project with the Carib Theatre Company and Franklyn Lane Productions. We’ll keep you posted.

 We also had a great time at the UKYP Annual Sitting. LOADS of really engaged young people who are a credit to their areas and the UKYP too. Here’s Asher next to our stand:

And here’s our map where you could rate your school council:


Finally, don’t forget that you can get us in to do some training in your school or cluster of schools.

We’ve got lots of training booked, including trips to the Republic of Ireland and the Czech Republic.

Importantly, we’re working with many  local schools in Tottenham as part of the Smart School Council Community too.

Thanks for reading and stay tuned for lots of useful advice and blogs!

Greg

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involver blog

School councils and democracy: pick your model carefully

Modelling democracy is an incredibly important role of the school council, but it’s something that’s easy to get wrong. The first thing to think about it what type of democracy you want to model. The simplest answer is to base it on our local or national model. The problem with this is that most people adults feel pretty disconnected from this. Another option schools go for is what some schools might call the ‘effective democracy’ model: there is some voting involved, but staff push certain students who they ‘know would get things done’ into position. This model of democracy has recently been rebelled against in various Arab countries, but is still being used in Zimbabwe.

involver voting+ logo
There's more to democracy than voting. That's what our logo's supposed to represent: a voter's X with a +

I would suggest the type of democracy schools should want to model is one where:

a) People are engaged throughout the year, not just once when they vote.

b) Where representatives are picked they are selected solely by the people they represent.

What I mean by being engaged is that the whole school is involved in:

  • Identifying issues
  • Creating solutions
  • Carrying them out
  • Evaluating them

These aren’t things we expect other people to do for us, just because we elected them at the beginning of the year.

So, here’s what you need to do:

  1. Decide on what type of democracy you want to model – what values are important, not what structures.
  2. Decide on what kind of elections would best achieve this.
  3. Understand that any elections and representatives are just a small part of this.
  4. Get in touch with your local authority’s Democratic Services; they can help you out with ballot boxes, voting booths, etc.
  5. Give people plenty of warning about standing and help them to find out what it would mean to be a representative.
  6. Make sure your elections are open and fair and run in the same way across the school.
  7. Set up and keep up excellent communication between the whole school and the school council.
  8. Make sure everyone has the chance to get involved in problem solving through class councils, action teams, whole school meetings and so on.
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Student voice-o-meter is born!

Happy friday everyone,

For the last few months, we’ve been working on an exciting new student voice/school council tool called the Student Voice-o-Meter. We’ve worked closely with two very talented people, Robert Johnson doing the amazing illustration, and Derek Winton pulling all the database and code stuff together. We’re extremely grateful for their help, ideas and talent in making the voice-o-meter come alive.

Put simply, it’s a student-led tool that helps schools to look at what’s good and bad about student voice or their school council. And how it can be improved. Here’s a wee preview:

Involver : Student voice-o-meter from bitsOfBobs on Vimeo.

The Student Voice-o-Meter is very young at the moment, and needs to work with some friendly schools to help him to grow. It’s really hungry and would love some data from your school.

That means we’re looking for three or four schools to give it a trial, get some support from us, and tell us what they think. When it’s up and running, we’ll give those schools free access to the tool. Forever.

So if you’re a teacher or a student, we’d love to hear from you.

Take a look at www.studentvoiceometer.org.uk and if you’re interested, then get in touch with us at info@involver.org.uk.

You can also follow the Student Voice-o-meter on twitter..

Make sure to follow Bits of Bobs on twitter too. You can hear all about his illustration and sandwich adventures.

Greg