Today we had a day off from visiting schools and instead went to meet one of CEDU’s partner organisations in Brno, Masaryk University Civic Education Centre. They are doing really interesting work on adult civic education through libraries. I love the idea of libraries as hubs for civil society.
The word ‘rhetological’ is made up. Just so I can munge two types of entity: rhetorical techniques and logical fallacies.
The Civic Education Centre have translated them into Czech and I think they would be a great addition to the the wall of any citizenship classroom or school council meeting room.
After our visit with the Civic Education Centre and a tour around Brno we drove on to the town near our next school, right in the centre of the Czech Republic. Whilst having supper in our hotel we became involved in a Czech Christmas tradition. Here St Nicholas comes on the 5th/6th of December to give presents to children, but he’s accompanied by devils and angels. Whether you get sweets or a potato and whether you have to answer to the devils or angels depends on how good or bad you’ve been during the year. Two of our hosts, Camila and Filip had their sins and achievements recounted by St Nic, but unfortunately Greg and I missed out as he didn’t speak English.
St Nicholas reading from his book of naughty and nice boys and girls.Two of the devils helping St Nicholas read from his book.St Nicholas was also accompanied by an angel but she didn’t have much to say to our table.
Tomorrow we’ll have another school to tell you about.
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.
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):
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.
You should just be able to copy the ‘Issue’ from your minutes.
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.
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’
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.
Depending on the question, you may find it useful to add some options for classes to select from.
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.
I asked all the delegates to list as many student voice ideas, initiatives and projects as they could, both those used in their schools, and others that they had heard of. This is the list they came up with. I provided the five headings, but I did not offer a specific definition of what ‘student voice’ is. You might find it useful to prompt discussion in your school and give you some ideas for how you could expand student voice. Below the list I offer a bit of analysis of some of the methods.
Teaching and learning
Learning walks to other establishments
1st week of Scheme of Work is planning the scheme with the students
Student curriculum panels
Student governors
Students as researchers
Students into lesson programme
Peer teaching
Student interviewers
Part of departmental review/visits
‘My World’ Project-based learning, completely self-directed with vivas
Drama in Education Theatre Group [Reaction] help organise + deliver assemblies, e.g. work experience/bullying
Student appointment panels
Reading: peer mentors – Y10 top set English used to support low ‘reading age’ students in Y7 + Y8 x 30 mins per week in library
Policy consultation
Mini ‘Insted’ – termly
Peer mentoring
Golden lessons
Lesson feedback + surveys
Student researcher: what makes a good lesson?
Student mentoring
Student-led mentoring
Students used to observe and score candidates’ presentations during SELECTION PROCESS
Student mentoring Y12 pupils mentoring Y10
Reading pairs
Pupils to observe lessons and give feedback
Students involved in departmental meetings discussing teaching and learning issues
Student council
Learning council
Student SEF
Homework review: regularity, consistency, quality, use of school system
Lead learners – student observers
Student lesson observations
Student voice questionnaires in department learning reviews
Student interview panel
Language champions
Student receptionist
Digital leaders
Pupils as observers
Debating society
Student involvement in lesson observations and feedback
Student learning exchange visits
Student panel involvement in staff reviews
Student voice panel on all staff interviews
Learning walks, possible to use students
Student panel involvement in departmental reviews
Environment
Ground Force group
Looking into solar energy
Consultations for colour schemes for school
Keeping an eye on what needs doing
Chickens
Community voice reps
Enterprise reps
Students working with school interior manager to update displays around the school throughout the year
Key stage toilets
Eco school
Student marketing and branding group
School council influence on things such as uniform, dinners, toilets
BeMAD (fundraising group)
Tree planting
School council
Charity reps
Recycling
Relationships
Peer mentoring support groups
Anti-bullying support
Students running societies – e.g. politics society, debating
Student tours for visitors
Partnership with local schools’ council
Meet and greet/guides at open evenings and for visitors
Subject prefects – helping with activities involving younger pupils
Volunteer council
Student ambassadors
Working with primary students – sports leaders + dance leaders
‘Pay it forward’ council
Promoting the school – 6th Form student ambassadors (this also generates feedback)
Confidential clinic
Health and safety society (leads to STI presentations)
Peer mentors – Blue Guardian Angels – used to support younger students with emotional issues, behavioural issues or bullying
Student senior leaders + SCT meetings
Links to town council – chambers for meetings
Rights Respecting Schools
Peer mentoring
Behaviour
Behaviour for learning group
Student duty staff
Pulling pupils out of detention to discuss areas within student voice – gauge their opinion
School policies: uniform, bullying, etc.
Development of anti-bullying policy
Peer mentors – restorative justice
Development of behaviour policy
Students given specific duties to monitor behaviour at break and lunch times
Anti-bullying strategies, e.g. poster competitions/campaign, anti-bullying group
House system – vertical groups mean highest level students can assist younger pupils, e.g. UCAS admissions
Other
Fair trade
Involved in school and student liturgy groups (Catholic school)
Representation at Town Remembrance Service
Peer support
VLE: setting up a student voice forum
Ideas – feedback on student menus
House captains
Open evenings/parents evenings: front of house, tours, speaking
Shadow governors
Student council
Student interview panels for higher TLR posts
Big Idea reps
Involved in staff appointments
Young Enterprise
Charity/fundraising
Student governors
Citizenship Award: For student in Y10 who has taken his/her own initiative to support the school. Focus decided by student.
Primary school links: language, citizenship, PE, etc.
Meeting VIPs
Visiting speakers
6th Form partnership group
Fundraising
On-line Agony Aunt
Youth Parliament
Front desk
Sports leaders
Naming student voice as ‘The Voice’ (also a singing contest pupils like).
Non-uniform days for charities
Sub-committees for various issues (Buildings & Environment, Relationships & Behaviour, Learning & Teaching, Events & Fundraising)
Young chamber
Links with local youth council and local area action group
SNAG: School Nutrition Action Group
Youth Parliament
Prefects involved in charity/local fundraising and activities
International school
Working groups: Environment, Website, Canteen, Fundraising & Events
Student guides
Analysis
The first thing that struck me was simply how many ideas were under the ‘teaching and learning’ heading. A few years ago very few schools even saw this as an appropriate issue for school councils and student voice to touch on. During our discussions throughout the day it was also clear that it was the area that all of the teachers in the room wanted students to be able to have more of an impact on.
The methods suggested demand a little more examination though. This is not my list and I would not suggest any school should be doing all of these things (I don’t even know what all of them are) but most are worth a go. However, whilst there are many very good ideas here, I wouldn’t classify all of them as ‘student voice’. I think a distinction should be made between ‘student leadership’, ‘students given responsibility’ and ‘student voice’. All can be useful but confusing them can have unintended consequences for learning.
Having students as receptionists, showing people around the school and presenting at conferences is excellent: the students learn skills, and better understand how the school works, the school demonstrates its ethos of putting young people at its heart and the guests/visitors/delegates get a different perspective on the school. Everyone wins. Unless you tell the young people that this is their way of having a say in how the school runs, in how they learn, because it’s not. It teaches them that you (and by extension others in power) don’t know how to listen and don’t care to give them the appropriate opportunity to be heard. That’s not a good thing for your school, or society as a whole.
It’s somewhat similar to the experience of the Games Makers at the Olympics. They were integral to its success and thousands of them gave their time gladly and were rightly proud of the part they had played. If they had been recruited with the promise that they would ‘have a say’ in how the Games was run would they have been so happy to turn up on day two when it became clear on day one that their job was just to point people in the right direction?
So be clear about the opportunities available to students, why they are valuable, what they will get out of it, what they can contribute, but don’t over-promise.
Type
(Asher’s) definition
Examples
Learning opportunities
Students given responsibility
Students are asked to carry out duties that someone else has defined.There is little or no opportunity for them to change what these duties are.
Monitors
Prefects
Student receptionists
Guide for visitors
Sports captains
Peer mediators
Skills for a particular job
Learning how the school functions
Responsibility
Mediation
Being a role model
Student leadership
Students take on a leadership role in issues that do not affect the core business of the school or their community.These roles are not initiated by students, but they may be quite self-directed in the way they fulfil them.
Fundraising for external charities
Student mentoring
Debating society
Student ambassadors
Running after-school clubs
Sports/drama/arts leaders (who just assist the teacher)
Being /having positive, young role models
Planning
Organisation
Presenting
Developing responsibility and independence
Student voice – individual
Students are asked, as individuals, to feed in to the decisions made about them in school.
Surveys
Feedback forms
Polls
Individual, self-directed study
That students’ views and opinions are valued
That staff are keen to continue improving and learning
Student voice – democratic
Students are asked to collectively feed in to decisions made about the core business of the school (T&L, buildings, behaviour, policies, rules)This needs to involve some level of discussion, collaboration, negotiation and compromise. It is not simply passing on 1200 views, but coming to some shared positions.
School councils (backed by an effective, whole school structure)
Students as researchers group
Student governors
Student sub-committees
Compromise
Negotiation
Responsibility
Understanding of how the school works
Being a representative
Organisation
Communication
Planning
That students’ views and opinions are valued
That staff are keen to continue improving and learning
Although the school council is doing a lot people don’t know about it.
The suggestion
Whenever the school council does anything make a plaque and stick it up in a relevant place – or as relevant a place as you can find. You want to have the school covered in them.
Plaques could just be laminated card, but the better they look the more important the school council will be seen to be.
The outcome
People are always reminded of the ability of the school council to make change; therefore they are more likely to involve the school council when they want to change something.
It becomes obvious where the school council has not managed to have an impact yet.
Additional ideas
You could develop a logo for the school council to put on these plaques and to help identify the school council.
This is just one way of promoting the school council. The most important thing is to have a strong, regular structure of class meetings and feedback so everyone in the school knows how they are involved in making changes in the school.
When we were running training for teachers in the Czech Republic in May I suggested a number of simple ideas that our hosts asked me to write up. It’s taken me a while, but this is the first of them. We’ll be posting the rest over the coming days.
The issue
Students don’t have the skills to run meetings themselves.
The suggestion
Finish all your meetings 2 minutes early.
In this time ask one question to all of the participants:
What did the chairperson do well?
Write all the answers on a large piece of paper.
Put this up where the chairperson can see it at every meeting.
At the end of each meeting ask the question again and add new responses.
The outcome
You have a growing list of tips for chairpeople, so more people feel confident to chair meetings.
Reflecting on what made the meeting go well ensures that the meeting is a learning experience.
Additional ideas
Once you feel you have a good list about chairing you could change the question and start coming up with new lists of tips:
What did the adults in our meeting do well?
What did we do well to solve problems?
What did people do well to represent their classes?
I’ve just got back from a fantastic couple of days in Warsaw presenting at an event hosted by Fundacja Civis Polonus. I wanted to quickly note down a few things that came up whilst I was there.
As with our experiences in the Czech Repulbic and Ireland, I found that many of the issues are similar to those we face in the UK and there are things we can learn from how they are dealing with them.
The law
In England, Scotland and Northern Ireland there is no requirement to have a school council, although there is a lot of guidance that pushes schools towards them. Wales does require schools to have a school council but the way their law is framed is quite different to the approach Poland has taken.
In Poland since the fall of Communism schools have been required to have a school council. Their law also specifies which areas of school life the school council should be involved in and that all students need to be involved. This sounds great to me and much more useful than a law that specifies structures (numbers of meetings, electoral processes, etc.) but not areas of influence.
Despite this, the issues are around the law not being enforced, or at least the important aspects of it are not. Whilst just about every school has a school council they are not widely involved in school life and they involve very few people. The consensus amongst those at the event was that they tended to focus on just raising money for charity and organising parties. One of the other presenters, Michal from Centrum Edukacji Obywatelskiej (CEO), showed research that suggested that over 40% of students hadn’t even voted in a school council election, let alone been more deeply involved.
So the law in itself isn’t enough, there needs to be support for students and schools to understand what they could and should be doing and help them to do it. That’s the aim of Funacja Civis Polonus, CEO and their partners. We’ll be doing what we can to support them and also to learn what we can from them to support schools in the UK.
The bright coloured text apparently means 'Small Government' Michael Gove would be proud.
Ideas from a Warsaw school council co-ordinator
On Tuesday I visited a primary school in the suburbs of Warsaw (which has students up to the age of about 14) and met with the school council co-ordinator who explained how their school council works. There was lots of good stuff happening but three things jumped out at me as possibly of interest to UK schools:
There is a teacher with responsibility for children’s rights. This is an advocate for the children in the school. It seems to me that it might be good to have a governor with this responsibility.
The school council co-ordinator is elected by students. Teachers who are willing nominate themselves and commit to the job. I imagine they may have to produce a manifesto and/or campaign. Students then elect the person they think will support them best. I wonder how this would work in UK schools? Would it raise the profile of student voice amongst staff and students?
The school council are allowed to use the Tannoy to keep people up to date with what they are doing and to remind the student body of what they need to discuss or do to support student voice. I don’t know how many schools have public address systems like this, but where they exist it could be a useful tool.
