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School council welcome pack – helping new school councillors

As you might expect, as someone really interested in education, schools and community I’m a school governor. One of the things I’m doing in that role currently is thinking about how we make new governors feel supported and able to play a constructive role as soon as possible. So I’ve started re-writing our governor induction pack – this is basically a welcome pack for new governors. It’s lead me on to thinking about not just what information we give to new governors, but what mentoring and training we need to give them and what we need them to do to make the most of it.

How to be a SMART school councillor
You need to create a guide for your school on how new school councillors can do a great job representing their peers and making things happen. You might want to include one of these for some ideas on your roles, collecting ideas and running meetings. Please excuse the shameless plug ;)

It occurred to me that new school councillors could do with a similar sort of pack and that getting current school councillors to write it would be really useful to get your new school council off to a flying start next year.

Below is the process we are going through and how I think it could work for a school council.

  1. Get together a small group of current school councillors – ideally some who have been on the council for a while and some who are new.
  2. Write down a list of all the things you wish you had known when you became a school councillor.
  3. Write down a list of all the support that you have found useful in your role as a school councillor.
  4. Add in any support that you would have liked but didn’t receive.
  5. Write a short document (no more than a page) that will be the cover of your induction pack. This should tell new school councillors what support they will get and list all the useful information that you will put in the welcome pack. We have organised under these headings, they might work for you too:
    • What we’ll do to support you (the new school councillor)
    • What we need you to do
    • The documents attached (that will help you to understand your role and how our school and school council works)
    • Useful websites (or other sources of information)
  6. Now you’ve got to collect all that information together and work out whatever training, mentoring, etc. you have said you will provide.

Do you already have a school council welcome pack? What is in it or what would you put in it if you had one?

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Getting class council meetings to work

Involving the whole school

The key issue for school councils is how they involve the whole student body. Not just once a year when representatives are voted on, but on an on-going basis, throughout the year.

For me the core of the answer is in class meetings. Through these every student in the school can be listened to, given a chance to speak and become involved. Not all will want to, and many won’t very often, but the fact that it happens regularly, for everyone makes a huge difference. It is clear that the school (and the school council) are there for you when you need it, and is actively trying to involve you.

Transferring responsibility in secondaries

In secondary schools having these meetings is often seen to be harder than in primaries. The timetable is more prescribed, students move around and swap groups during the day, and so on. Last week when this issue arose at a training session I asked about the class meetings in the teacher’s school. He said that they had got rid of them because they couldn’t rely on the 72 form tutors to run them and pass on the messages. I’ve heard this from so many schools and it makes me sad to think about what this says to the students about how much their form tutors value their opinions. It raises questions of management too, but we’ll leave that to another time.

To me it seems that this is a problem that could be avoided. This shouldn’t be the teachers’ responsibility, it should be the class reps’.  They should each have a simple page to assist them to run a class meeting. It lists decisions made, questions to be asked and a space for raising new issues. This makes sure that every class in the school is involved in the discussions of the school council. All the teacher needs to do is ensure that every other Friday 15 minutes of form time is given over to the class rep (as stated in the school council policy).

So I suggested this to the delegates at the training event. They liked the idea and of course asked whether I had a template for this. “Of course,” I white-lied, “I’ll send it out to you all next week.” So this morning I transferred that template from my head to the computer.

Free template

You can download a PDF or a Word version below. There are instructions for the class rep on the sheet itself. Instructions on how to fill it out are at the bottom of this page.

[gview file=”http://involver.org.uk/dl/class-meeting-feedback-form.pdf” save=”0″]

[download id=”250″]

[download id=”251″]

Instructions for filling it out

I would suggest you take the Word version and then you can type directly in to it. This is how it needs to be filled out (I say ‘school council’ below but it could be any meeting that is being reported back from, such as a year or house council):

  1. In Section 1 you should put the decisions that were taken at the school council. Keep it succinct but clear, as the rep will just read this section out.
  2. You should just be able to copy the ‘Issue’ from your minutes.
  3. The ‘Action/Decision’ should also be from your minutes, so wherever possible it should be an action: WHO is going to do WHAT by WHEN.
  4. The ‘Reason’ is where you can add some explanation. For example, ‘There was general agreement on this from across the school’; ‘There isn’t the money to do this at this time’
  5. In Section 2 you should write the question that the school council wants to ask the whole school. Make the question clear and simple, so you are sure everyone across the school understands it as written.
  6. Depending on the question, you may find it useful to add some options for classes to select from.
  7. You should leave section 3 blank, this is where ideas from the classes are written down.

You then need a system for collecting and collating these sheets. It could be that they are all handed in to the office straight after form time to be collected by the school council secretary later.

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Case Studies involver blog

School council and student voice case study: Westfield Community School

Here’s the third in our series of school council case studies, it’s Westfield Community School!

Key quote:

“It’s critical that children see the process and can see the end product. It’s more than just having a chat, and the children know this. They know the process is important in school. They know the starting point and what they’ve achieved.”

Assistant headteacher

Key benefits to student voice:

Pupils respect staff because it is clear that the opinions, views and ideas of every child are taken seriously and acted upon appropriately.

Transition and connection between phases is improved by older students working every week with younger students.

All new buildings, equipment and schemes have a high chance of success because the whole-school is actively consulted. The best options for all are chosen and there is a sense of excitement and ownership of them.

Top advice

  • The critical thing is that projects have a process and that children know the process. See things through to the end, do not give up with any stumbling blocks, bring it back to the school council and the class councils and work through it.
  • Do not put anything off limits, it will ruin your credibility. Address everything that is brought up in the most appropriate way.
  •  Value every voice, not just those who get elected. So use a structure where the views from the whole class (not just the class rep) are accurately represented to the school council. A strong system of class councils enables this.
  •  Be clear about what the school council process is and how it works. Only certain types of pupil will volunteer to take part in something they do not fully understand.
  • Keep reviewing your system to make sure everyone is getting heard.

Methods used:

School council and class councils

“The class councils drive the ideas. All the children are involved in everything.”

Assistant headteacher

Class councils form the core of pupil voice at Westfield. They happen every week in every class. Pupils can discuss any issues they like but the focus is always on coming up with solutions that the pupils themselves can carry out rather than just requesting things from staff. These meetings are run by members of the school council, who come from Years 5 and 6. They are supported by the class teacher to ensure that everyone stays reasonably well on track. Every fourth week there is a school council meeting where the pupils representing each class share and co-ordinate views and action from across the school.

“As a class teacher you always think such and such would make a good class councillor, but the children have other ideas, and as children can see the processes, more children are putting themselves forward. We’re clear about the process, so they see that they could do it too.”

Assistant headteacher

Improving representation on the school council for younger children

It had been the case that the school council was made up of members from every year group, but it was felt that this meant that some of the younger children were not being properly represented. Often the class reps from the lower years struggled to remember what they had discussed with their classes and so just gave their personal opinions in school council meetings. It was felt that older children were more able to keep this focus, so the school council was restructured to include just Years 5 and 6.

Each school councillor not only represents her own class but also has responsibility for representing specific classes lower down the school. So whilst younger pupils are not on the school council any more they all have an effective advocate there. They also all have the chance to discuss issues every week in their class, in meetings led primarily by another pupil.

Structures that facilitate action

The school council regularly works directly with the school’s senior leadership team (SLT) and governors. These relationships means they understand some of the possibilities and constraints of running the school. It also reinforces the views of the SLT and governors that pupils’ contributions are practical, mature and important. Furthermore it gives the school council a clear channel for raising key issues in the school with the key people.

To enable them to better deal with the smaller issues the school council requested and got a budget. This allows them to act quickly on ideas brought up in class council meetings so pupils see an immediate connection between them expressing their views and changes in the school.

Pupil-led whole-school consultations

When major changes are happening in the school the school council runs detailed, structured whole-school consultations. These ensure that every pupil is able to play a role in shaping what the school will look like.

Recently this has included what happens in the playground (equipment and activities) and a current consultation is on the ‘the Growing Space’. This is an area of unused land adjacent to the school that the school has acquired as an ‘outdoor classroom’. What will go in to this and what it will look like is being decided by the whole-school. Rather than just rely on each individual class representatives to explain this and discuss it with her class in her own way, which can result in patchy levels of feedback, the school council has designed a process to be run with the whole school. They run an assembly for each of the three phases in the school; then do a presentation in each class council meeting; then collect views from the whole-school before finally collating these views to create a report. This report is presented to the SLT and governors as well as fed back to the whole-school.

“It creates as sense of ownership for students, gives them a sense of achievement and shows what we think of our children, that it’s about what they would like, and they know that, and that’s a real key in terms of the respect the children have for us.”

Assistant headteacher

Putting pupils at the heart of school design

By ensuring that pupils are part of the process of designing the ‘feel’ of the school a great sense of ownership and pride has been developed. This is evidenced both in respect for the building and respect for staff. Pupils worked with a photographer to generate ideas for images for each phase within the school. The children themselves are featured in the images and the school council decided on which ones to use, as well as deciding on materials.

About the school

Westfield Community Primary School is a larger than average-sized school formed in 2005, following the amalgamation of two local primary schools. The percentage of pupils known to be eligible for free school meals is three times the national average. The proportion of pupils with special educational needs and/or disabilities is above that usually found. The school population is predominantly White British and there are few pupils at early stages of speaking English as an additional language. The school is also a resourced school for the local authority and offers places to pupils with low-severity autism or speech and language difficulties.

Westfield holds National Healthy Schools Status and the Activemark. It has been identified as a National College Leadership Development School. It also holds the Cabinet Office Award.

 

Involver conducted these case studies for the Office of the Children’s Commissioner in 2011, as part of a project to encourage schools to involve their students in decision making

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Ways to run school council meetings

These are a few ideas for how you can run discussions in your school or class council meetings. In fact you could use them in any meeting really.

Method Good for Be aware of
Yes/No/Maybe – designate a different area of the room for each answer. Ask the question and get people to stand in the area that represents their answer. Ask people to explain their reasoning and persuade others.

A more sophisticated version is an ‘opinion line’ where participants place themselves along a line to show how strongly they agree/disagree with something.

A further level of sophistication is to make a graph with 2 axes (e.g. difficulty vs importance or agree vs care).

 Getting people out of their seats.

Pushing people to explain their reasoning.

Getting different people talking.

Being a physical demonstration of changing opinion and persuasion.

 Peer pressure: people not wanting to stand on their own. You can often avoid this by starting with trivial questions and supporting and praising those who do stand on their own.
Passing the ‘conch’ – an object is passed around and only the person with that object can speak.

Different rules can be applied: e.g. when you have the ‘conch’ you have to speak; the ‘conch’ has to be passed round the circle; the ‘conch’ can be passed to anyone you like; the conch only goes to those demonstrating good listening.

 Stopping interrupting: it gives a very clear signal of who is supposed to be speaking.

Can help quieter people to speak, because they know they won’t be interrupted and/or they are required to.

 The ‘conch’ becoming a distraction.

Meetings becoming slow if there is no Chair to pass the ‘conch’ on.
Small groups – set the question and then split the class in to small groups (3-6). Ask them to discuss it and come up with one answer that they can all agree on. Have one person from each group give their group’s answer and reasoning. Allows everyone to have a say without taking too long.

Encourages compromise within the small group.

 One person dominating a small group.

If all the small groups come up with different answers coming to a conclusion may need further discussions.
Losing your marbles – give each person 3 marbles. When someone speaks they have to hand over a marble, so once they’ve contributed three times they need to stay quiet. You can also turn this round and say by the end of the meeting everyone needs to have lost all of their marbles. Making sure the meeting isn’t dominated by a few people.

Encouraging people to consider what is really important for them to contribute to.

Keeping track of who contributes and who doesn’t.

 Having everyone run out of marbles before the end – you need to make sure everyone knows what is coming up, so they can plan when to use a marble.

What methods do you use to liven up your meetings and ensure that everyone gets a say?

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Student Leadership Teams: is this the real student voice?

As the new school year starts you might be thinking about how to give student voice in your school the kick up the bum is desperately needs. Last year’s school council was a bit of a washout, wasn’t it? There was a lot of moaning, a fair bit of grumbling, that one idea that didn’t quite come off and then a whole load of prevarication.

If only the kids on the school council weren’t that negative, feckless bunch. It would all have been different if you’d had the school’s elite, the committed, quick-witted, leaders of the student body driving things forward.

So how do we get them involved?

How about creating positions with cachet, status and a rigorous process of selection? We’ll have advertisements, interviews, regular meetings and a place in the School Development Plan. We’ll call it the Student Leadership Team and give them all titles mirroring the Senior Leadership Team to show how seriously we’re taking them.

Now we’ve got a strong, confident student voice speaking directly to every department and to the SeniorLT. Sorted.

I’ve seen that thought process in many schools but I think it fundamentally misses the point of student voice. There are four reasons why schools need a strong student voice:

  1. Learning:
    • Skills: giving students the chance to learn skills of team work, negotiation, communication and project management.
    • Citizenship: for students to learn, through experience, about their responsibilities to create the community they want to be part of and what a democracy is, its potential, limitations and inherent compromises.
  2. ‘Well-being’: giving students constructive alternative routes to resolve problems and raise personal concerns.
  3. Evaluation: collecting the views of the school ‘users’ to see how they feel the school is performing.
  4. Obligation: the UNCRC requires that young people have some say in decisions that affect them. In Wales school have to have a school council and whilst legislation in the rest of the UK doesn’t require it, it strongly suggest that it should be happening.

So which of these does StuLT miss? Well, probably all of them if it is constructed as suggested above. The key element that’s missing is universality. If the reasons for student voice that I have given are valid it’s important that all students are involved in student voice. Choosing those who already do well and give staff the kinds of answers they want to hear does little for the majority of students. It also undermines your evaluation and attempts to meet your obligations.

So, am I against StuLTs? No, I think they can be a great way of tying students in to the decision-making processes in schools, but they need to be built on the democratic structures that exist (such as class and school councils), not undermine or replace them. The ideas about cachet, status, rigorous selection, etc. could – no, should – be applied to the school council. Make your election process demanding and informative. Get each member of the school council to take on a role on the StuLT. Impress on those standing the importance of their role.

StuLTs need to be considered as part of a whole school student voice plan. A plan with students, not the school, at its heart. A plan built around learning not school improvement. So every student gains the learning and well-being on offer, and all of their views form part of the school’s self-evaluation. School improvement will naturally grow from this.

So when you’re trying to redesign student voice in your school think about it as an educator, not an administrator. Start with these two questions and build from there:

  • What do I want it to teach students about the world?
  • Which students do I want to learn this?

 

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School council interview questions

Feet of a student and a teacher in an interview
Photo by http://www.sxc.hu/profile/maiapedro

If you’re a teacher who’s about to be interviewed for a new job by a school council or other group of students it can be daunting to prepare for. Below is a list of questions that school councils we’ve worked with have asked and some general advice.

Questions the school council might ask you

  • What activities should we have in our school and why?
  • How would you make our school better?
  • What would you do if there was a pupil who is angry with his/her friend?
  • How do you help children have fun?
  • What would someone have to do to get sent home?
  • What does bravery mean to you?
  • Why do you like teaching?
  • What did you enjoy most when you were at school?
  • What’s the best lesson you ever taught?
  • If you weren’t a teacher, what would you be doing?
  • Who do you most admire?
  • How would describe your teaching style?
  • What’s your favourite subject (other than the one you teach)?
  • What do you think about homework?

What the school council might be looking for

A teacher who:

  • Is fair (particularly in terms of being even-handed)
  • Runs a classroom in such a way that everyone can learn
  • Is enthusiastic about her/his subject/teaching
  • Likes young people
  • Will challenge them
  • Will challenge bullying
  • Has a sense of humour
  • Is a problem-solver
  • Is an expert
  • Is a professional
  • Is caring
  • Is ‘strict in a polite way’ (i.e. doesn’t scream and shout to create discipline)
  • Is fun (i.e. likes to have fun and help others have fun)
  • Can make learning fun
  • Acts the same with pupils and teachers

General advice for interviews with a school council

  • Talk to the students – If there’s an adult in the room (there should be) remember that she/he is just there to support the students, your interview is with the students, so direct your answers to them.
  • Ask them questions – ‘Does that happen in your school?’; ‘What do you think needs changing?’. This shows that you would listen to them if you came to the school. It’s also a great way for you to find out more about the school. You can even use their answers in your interview with the adult interview panel: ‘When I was talking to your school council, they said that …, which I would try to address by …’
  • Use concrete examples – ‘In my current school …’; ‘When I was at school …, so now I …’
  • Relax – Difficult in an interview, but you’re in front of young people all the time, right? The students might not be as understanding of your tension as adults, never having been in a job interview, but remember these students just offer a recommendation to the full interview panel, they don’t make the decision.
  • Be yourself – The school council will be frustrated if they think you’re trying to spin them a line. They want to respect you and get on with you: none of you will be able to tell if that can happen if you’re not being yourself. If you do get on with them then great, if not, maybe it’s not the school you want to be at anyway.
  • Be honest – This will be respected far more than you making something up on the spot.
  • Take time to think – Just as in any interview, they’re looking for a considered answer, not a quick one. As students they appreciate time to think about their answers: if you show that you understand that and sympathise, they’ll warm to you.

If you want advice on how to set up school council interviews, have a look here: Pupil interview panels – getting it right

What questions have you asked or been asked in interviews with a school council or other students? Do you have any tips for people facing a school council interview panel?

Add them in the comments and I’ll update the list above.

 

Find more great school council resources at the Smart School Councils Community.