Tag: fun

Categories
involver blog Resources

A short toolkit for school council co-ordinators

I created this short toolkit for the Salford School Council Co-ordinators Network.  As with everything we’re doing at involver when we create something we want to give it away for schools to use, play around with and share (that’s why we release everything under a Creative Commons licence). So have a look at this, I think there’s some really useful stuff in there, but it’s not supposed to cover everything, so if there are things you’d like us to add, just drop us an email and we’ll keep expanding it.  This is what’s in there now:

  • Ice breakers (4 school council-related games)
  • Boundaries and possibilities (2 different types of activity to explore what these might be)
  • School Councils are the end, not the beginning (presentation – hopefully it makes sense)
  • (Updated – April 2010) Planning elections
  • Key lines of communication (a worksheet for planning communication)
  • School policy on pupil participation (an essential document for any school that’s serious about pupil well-being – this is a guide to creating one)
  • School council constitution (you can’t really have pupil representation without one – although many try – some scenarios to set you on your way)
  • Tips for great meetings (guides to help you through preparing for a successful meeting, the meeting itself and ground rules to avoid pitfalls)

All three of these downloads have exactly the same stuff in:

[download id=”2″] 2.4MB
You can’t really edit it, but it will look just right with our nice fonts and things.

[download id=”93″] 1.3MB
Best if you might want to edit things and have a newer version of Word:

[download id=”92″] 2.9MB
Use this if you want to edit the file and can’t open newer Word files:

Categories
involver blog News

The Fun Theory

I just came across this video (thanks to@hellostanley for pointing it out):

And it seems to me that this is exactly what school councils should be about: making things fun, but in a way that improves other things too.

There are two more excellent, funny videos on thefuntheory.com website as well as a competition.  If you can come up with an idea for how you could change people’s behaviour in a fun way, you could get a €2,500 (£2,250) grant to make it happen!

So watch the videos, get some ideas and get your entry in quick, it closes on the 14th November.

Let us know what you’re doing to make things fun.

I know this might be seen as me giving free advertising for VW, but when it’s a good idea, it’s a good idea! That’s the beauty of making things fun. You can’t argue with it, you just want to spread it around. Your school council needs to make use of this!

Categories
involver blog

Slovakian adventure!

I’m back in London, via Vienna, after an amazing time in Kosice, Slovakia. It was a very inspiring and interesting three days.

slovakian flag

Great to hear about the challenges, successes and stories of people in other countries who are broadly trying to do the same things as us in the UK. Great to meet so many motivated, passionate young people. Great to visit Slovakia for the first time – it is a beautiful country!

After the first day of the meeting, with a visit to the school (See pic) , the rest of the trip focused on evaluating the ‘It’s your choice, use your voice’ project.

school

It was down to business in the amazing venue in Kyask – a beautiful old Soviet recreation centre for young people, set in the hills outside Kosice. A perfect place to work and think! The project had linked and compared school councils and youth democracy across Slovakia and Italy. It included training, conferences, seminars, youth exchanges, and supporting school councils to link with each other, and with regional councils.

A number of common obstacles were identified:

  • problems with elections
  • lack of youth motivation
  • lack of joined up thinking from local government
  • adults who are too willing to lead instead of facilitate

It was useful to provide my point of view on these obstacles as we went along, making clear how familiar they are to us, and discussing how best to overcome them.

Their main idea is to present the evaluation of the project in a way that will convince other young people to get involved. To pass on their learning to others, to help motivate young people – to make them ‘involvers’ I guess. Together, everyone put together a clear plan on the publication to convince other young people, which I’m sure will be a success – using some very eye-catching design. It will be translated into English, Slovakian and Italian, so I hope we can put it up on the involver site when it is done.

Italian group presenting their ideas
Italian group presenting their ideas

There were also lots of ideas for further cooperation that we hope to get involved with. I gave information on what Asher and I are up to with involver, and signposted resources and ideas which could help everyone in the future.

I think I’ll be going back in November – hopefully with Asher this time – to do some training, which is very exciting. The Kosice region is setting up their first regional school council.

Democratic youth voice on this scale has never happened before, so it’s amazing to be involved. There is also a possibility of some training in Turin to help with their regional school council in February next year – we would love to be involved in this too.

Both opportunities are very exciting – especially because it would give
me the chance to catch up with my new friends. Sooooo cheesy (sorry).

So thank you Michal and Erika for inviting me to take part, and thank you to all the young people who took part (especially for the Slovakian ‘mineral water’/ and the (many) Italian songs from Napoli). A great experience.

Over the course of the three days, I took short videos of some of the young people present asking them why student voice and school councils are important to them. I’ll put up a new one every day for the next week or so. Thank you to those who took part in this – your English is great! Here is Veronica from Slovakia telling us about her role in her school in Kosice:

Categories
involver blog

Slovakia Day 2

Hello all.

Day 2 was interesting.

Out and about in Kosice plus some fun cultural activities, and AMAZING Italian cheese (grana padano) and Slovakian sausage.

The main event  was the visit a secondary technical school in Kosice. We had a tour of the school, and the countries who are participating in the project explained their projects – and what was happening with student voice in their countries –  to the students.

We met the school council, which is one of the best in the region. Importantly, it had the support of the Headteacher and all staff. Here is a video of the activity and the Slovak group presenting their work:

Rest of the day involved: meeting new people, discussing ideas, walking, drinking, cheese, bowling, and a spot of karaoke (in Slovak).  Interesting stuff!

Day 3 is down to business. Discussing the evaluation of the project, and how it shall be reflected in a final publication. Report to follow!

Greg

Categories
involver blog Resources

Some cool tools from the BBC

Choose from four different visual tools on the BBC's Pinball site
Choose from four different visual tools on the BBC's Pinball site

A teacher on Twitter (@dannynic) pointed this out today:

bbc.co.uk/pinball

It’s four great little tools for decision-making and coming up with creative ideas:

  • Firing out ideas
  • Making quick decisions
  • Mixing up ideas
  • Playing with images

I just had a little play with them and it seems to me they could be great tools to use in your school council meeting or action group, especially if you’ve got an interactive whiteboard.

Have a go!

Categories
involver blog Resources

Getting to know your reps game template

This is a template I’ve been working on following up on a resource I produced a couple of weeks ago, Making it fun: getting to know your reps.

Now it’s easy to create your own cards.  Just add in names, pictures and vital statistics.  Make them fun but make sure you check with people first before you write anything about them.

I’ve created the template in Word 2003 (.doc) format.  If this doesn’t work for you let me know and I’ll try to make other formats available.

Click here to download the file: [download id=”74″ format=”3″]

Update – here is a Word 2007 (.docx) version: [download id=”75″ format=”3″]

You can just fill in all the blanks or change the titles too if you want.
You can just fill in all the blanks or change the titles too if you want.

If you do change anything around or make your own, why not upload them here so everyone can see and share:

Upload resources to involver