InvolverJust found this on Twitter (you need to read it from the bottom to the top):
It’s great to use technology for your school council, but I guess you’ve got to understand it to understand the risks!
Here are my quick tips for running elections (I wrote these when I was working for School Councils UK):
So today we’ve been thinking about taglines for involver.
Up until now, we’ve gone with ‘engage, impact, enjoy’, which I think is good, but most people have said that it doesn’t actually say what we do. Fair point, so we’re having a bit of a rethink….
Companies employ shiny PR companies to spend months, and thousands of pounds, on a single line of text in taglines. I guess it’s to get the words, and the feeling that those words create, right. I wonder how much McDonalds spent to come up with those three words – ‘I’m lovin’ it!’.
Due to a lack of time, not to mention money, Asher and I have been working on ideas today. This is the list we’ve got so far:
Issues:
– We want to focus on pupil voice because it is not prescriptive about the way schools should approach this. However, if we focus on that, then we lose the school councils niche. 95% of schools have them, and there’s a fair proportion that want to improve them. On the flip sude, if we focus on school councils too much, then it looks like we’re telling schools what to do, and not helping them to find a pupil voice model that works for them.
– My favourites are probably 3 or 13. Although with 3, there’s a worry that ‘helping’ isn’t strong enough. And with 13, is it clear enough? And do we need the ‘and’ compared to 14? So confused!
Either way, what do you all think? Leave a comment below.
It would be great to hear from you on what you think is best – teachers feel free to ask your pupils. If you think of a completely new one, or a combination of the above, let us know! We’re trying to think short, snappy and clear – but they are always the hardest!
Greg :)
Example is not the main thing in influencing others. It is the only thing.
Albert Schweizer, French philosopher, physician and winner of the 1952 Nobel Peace Prize (1875 – 1965)
It doesn’t matter who you’re teaching, training or working with, this is true; so we’ve made it central to everything we’re trying to do with involver. We know that if we don’t make participation fun, there’s no way we’ll get everyone involved, so we’re trying to have fun whilst we do it, present ourselves in a light-hearted way and use what we do as an example for school councils and other forms of participation.
With that in mind I’ve been working on little bios of me and Greg today, and it gave me an idea of a fun way to get people to know who their reps are. You can read our quick guide here and download for your own use with these links:
[download id=”63″ format=”3″]
[download id=”64″ format=”3″]
Have Fun Getting to Know Your Reps
Update: I’ve created some templates to hlep you to create your own cards like the ones above: Getting to know your reps game template
As involver develops there’ll be more and more like this, so keep checking back, follow me on Twitter (I’ll always let Twitter know about new free resources), or subscribe by RSS.