This morning I read an interesting story about how the school council at a Kent school are publicly disagreeing with a recent Ofsted judgement on their school.
It’s fantastic to see students having pride in their school and defending it in this way and it demonstrates some of the benefits of student voice: it develops a sense of ownership and responsibility for the school and provides a very important perspective on how the school is working.
I’d be very interested to know though whether they would have received the same support in publicising their views if the situation had been reversed. If the school had received a positive report, but the students’ experience is negative, what would have happened?
This article raises a couple of questions:
What weight is put on each of these two views: that of Ofsted and of the students?
Do you use student voice to support and challenge what is going on in your school?
Community-minded and socially aware students who want to take an active role in the school and local area.
Highly politically-literate students who are driven and keen to manage their own projects.
Improved relationships between students, staff and students, and the community in general.
Improved results in the school; students with five A* to C GCSEs has increased by 31 per cent in the last four years.
An ethos built around social justice and the principles of the Co-operative that helps everyone to get along and resolve arguments.
“It’s about changing the world.”
Co-operative Champion, Year 10
Top advice
Provide a wide range of ways for students to get involved in school life – only having a school council is not enough. If you can do this, a wide range of pupils will become involved.
‘Hooks’ to get students involved do not just have to centre around content areas (for example the environment or economics), but students with a particular skill (like photography or design) should be encouraged to participate too.
Schools should approach everyone to get involved, do not discriminate. Although you cannot force students to get involved, you can remind them and keep approaching them – you never know when they would like to do something.
Use something like the Co-operative’s values to involve everyone in a simple and accessible ethos. Student voice and participation becomes far easier when important values are embedded and understood across the school and between students, teachers and governors.
Get students involved at the heart of the community, not in isolation of it. The resources and challenges of the local community present real – not simulated – educational opportunities for student voice and action, but also help young people with certain qualifications.
Methods used:
Co-operative Champions
The school originally trained seven students as Co-operative Champions, who have now successfully trained more than 60 students across the school. The Co-operative ethos has helped to inspire students who do not usually get involved to do so.
Co-operative Champions have a jumper with a special logo on so they are recognisable around the school. They get involved in a wide range of events and projects and see their role as “making the world a better place”. They are also working on several partnerships with other schools across the world, like Reddish Vale’s sister school in Kiafeng, China.
ROC Cafe
ROC Cafe takes place every Friday night after school and gives students a safe space to relax, meet new people, and finish the week off on a positive note. ROC stands for “Redeeming Our Communities”, and the cafe opened in April 2010. Over 70 students attend most weeks, and students have had a strong role in planning and running the cafe. As one school council member put it:
“ROC Cafe has been a great success. Students have a good time and leave their troubles at the door.”
School council member, Year 9
School council
The school also has a traditional school council model, with year councils. This has an important role in school improvement and influence school decisions. This model tends to attract students who are more interested in parliamentary-style school improvement.
Ethiopian Coffee Collective
An example of one of many student-led co-operative projects: The school buys coffee directly from a coffee producer in Ethiopia, and sells it in the school. Students are learning important marketing and co-operation skills from this project, and are working hard to see it go from strength to strength.
Community engagement
The school works closely with, and for, the community in Reddish. This improves education opportunities for students, as well as the community itself. The school is also an important resource forthe community – Reddish is an area of high socio-economic deprivation, and young people are involved with around 100 of the local areas 150 small businesses.
About the school
Reddish Vale Technology College is a larger than average mixed comprehensive school serving an area of relative disadvantage. The college has had specialist technology status since 1995 and has been a full service extended school since 2005. The majority of the college population are of White British heritage and few students are at the early stages of learning English.
The percentage of pupils eligible for free school meals is higher than the national average, as is the percentage of those with learning difficulties and/or disabilities. The population of the college is stable, with relatively few students joining or leaving the college after entering in Year 7. Attendance is in line with the national average and better than many similar schools.
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
Improving schools should be fun, maybe if she involved pupils Haringey Council Leader, Cllr Claire Kober wouldn't look so glum.
This week Haringey Council Leader, Cllr Claire Kober wrote an open letter to all Haringey parents and guardians about what the council is doing to sort out the mess that is education in Haringey right now.
I am one of those parents. My daughter goes to the Willow School, round the corner from where we live in Tottenham. I am also a community governor of Welbourne Primary School (which is round the corner from our office) and I sit on the Haringey Governors Association (HGA) Executive Committee and the Schools Forum. I also volunteer my time to support Haringey’s school councils.
Cllr Kober is launching ‘Outstanding for All’ a commission “charged to consider the future of education provision in Haringey” with the aim of understanding “how all our schools can make profound improvements in their attainment”. Between her letter and a message sent to the HGA Cllr Kober made it clear that she wants the commission to talk to parents, teachers, headteachers, governors and local businesses. Fatally I think she has missed out the group she identifies as being “the most important people in any discussion about education”, the students themselves.
It seems that this process is in danger, before it even starts, of seeing young people as merely ‘outputs’ and data points rather than as central to the discussion and any solutions. Where this leads is to an education system that is not about inculcating a love of knowledge and an enquiring mind, but simply about learning to pass exams. This process switches off people’s ability to problem-solve, be innovative, creative and enterprising.
Cllr Kober would do well to visit Wroxham School to find out how they went from being in special measures to being outstanding (and have maintained it). Their attainment has gone up, but they would describe that as a side-benefit, rather than the driver or goal. They turned their school around not by focussing on attainment but on the community, including the children; they use their experience, insight and ideas to make their school successful.
I should point out that these are my views as a parent, governor and educator, I am not seeking to represent the HGA, Welbourne or the Schools Forum.
“College is a cultural mixing pot, so it’s impossible to say ‘this is what The Students want’, student voice enables teachers to be aware of the huge variety of wants and needs.”
Student governor
Key benefits:
The culture of ‘high respect’ goes hand in hand with ‘high discipline’. There are no bells or uniforms and also no detentions. Students are expected to be responsible, treated as though they can be and so they are.
Staff and students all buy in to and contribute to school improvement: “Staff are with student voice, the school is not for teachers to teach and students to listen; students help the school progress.”
Student-led clubs and societies give every student the opportunity to lead, whilst greatly broadening the range of extra-curricular activities for everyone. This requires minimal staff support.
Students are very clear of the skills they are learning through being representatives, leaders and active participants in their school. They link these directly to the roles they want to take on in later life, both in employment and in wider society.
Top advice:
“Start small, let it grow and learn from other schools.” Student governor
“It’s not necessarily the loudest or most confident students who have the best ideas. Student voice is every student’s view, not just the ‘leaders’ in the school. All roles should be important, it is not to do with how many ‘leaders’ there are.” Student governor
“Communicate and be diverse. If you are the ‘same old, same old’ people, people will not be interested. Give it creativity and glamour. Find different ways to talk.” Student governor
“Student voice is about being in the community, not just the school: connecting students and the school with what’s going on outside.” Student ambassador
“Engrain things from a young age, so people know how to use their voice.” Student ambassador
Beauchamp shows how it values student voice by creating professional-looking posters of all the representatives and teams and the things they’ve been doing. These are displayed all over the college.
Methods used:
Student governors
Rather than a school council the top-level student representation at Beauchamp is a group of four student governors from Year 13 (they are elected while they are in Year 12). This structure was suggested by a student five years ago and has been running since then. Student governors are elected by students from across the whole-school. Any student is able to stand; they realise it will be a significant commitment of time but that their potential to make an impact on the college is equally significant. Their role is to represent the views of all students to the college’s management and to co-ordinate and initiate many of the student-led projects.
The student governors meet with the vice-principal every Monday morning for an hour and a half to catch up with what each other are doing and what the school is working on. Any other student or member of staff can also attend these meetings to comment on issues being discussed or bring up new ones. Students can also get their views to the student governors through their Facebook page, suggestion box or by seeing them in their office. The student governors also attend all meetings of the full governing body – as associate governors – and are given voting rights when they turn 18. Having students as associate governors is a possibility open to all schools.
Student ambassador
The student ambassador is a new role at Beauchamp College. This is an appointed post, rather than elected. The student ambassador’s job is to create links between the student body and the local community. He has been working on representation at the local youth council as well as inter-generational schemes with the local elderly.
The student ambassador sees his role as giving a greater number of students the opportunity and encouragement to become involved in making a contribution to the school and wider community. He has set out to do this in a creative way to add to the avenues for student voice and leadership offered through student governors, INSTED, etc.
‘INSTED’
Like the student governors, INSTED was suggested by a student. It is an internal evaluation of teaching and learning led by a student team that has been running for four years. Places on the team are advertised annually and anyone can apply. Everyone who applies to take part can do so. They are trained by a member of staff who is also an ex-Ofsted inspector, who co-ordinates and supports the INSTED team.
The aims of INSTED are to:
Celebrate the positive aspects of teaching and learning;
Suggest areas for improvement and constructively help the college to move forward to be the best.
The INSTED team do this through lesson observations and discussions with staff and students; these follow a set format developed by the school. The results of these are compiled in to reports by a student co-ordinator. This is given to the teacher concerned and to the head of department.
The scheme is seen as a huge success with students being able to see the impact they are having in the classroom and teachers requesting INSTED observations as they see it as a way to push forward their own practice.
Students appointing staff
Students are heavily involved in all staff appointments at Beauchamp, including the appointment of the new principal. Where they have gone further than most schools is that they have completely managed the appointment of a member of staff. The job description and person specification of the Key Stage 5 manager, a pastoral role, was written by students; they advertised the post, managed the interviews and made the appointment. It was felt that as the role was primarily working for the students then the students should make the appointment. The process gave the students a real insight in to what goes into recruitment and the college is very happy with the appointment made.
In the recent process of appointing a new principal, students were present at all stages or the 2 week process, bar one interview.
Student-led clubs and societies
The college has a system whereby students can apply to set up and run clubs and societies, like in many university student unions. This not only greatly increases the number and range of extra-curricular activities the college can run, but provides a great number of leadership opportunities for students. The sense of ownership and responsibility this gives to students means that minimal staff support and supervision is needed.
These clubs and societies can come from any aspect of students’ lives, covering religious, sporting, cultural, philosophical and creative interests.
Student-led research
This offers all students the opportunity to become involved in research. Students are encouraged to choose an area which is of particular interest to them but is also in some way linked to the college’s corporate plan. All students who join the programme initially attend a seminar at a university campus in order for them to experience a taste of university life as well as learning the rudiments of carrying out a research project. Students can work individually or as a team and are allocated a mentor who supports and guides them throughout the process. There are currently over 40 students involved in the programme.
Students present their recommendations to the college leadership team once their data is collected and analysed. As students frequently tackle these projects from a different perspective to staff, their observations are of particular interest and regularly student proposals are both innovative and thought provoking.
About the school (adapted from Ofsted):
Beauchamp is a coeducational comprehensive 14-19yrs Upper School, with approximately 2150 students. It was formerly an old-established grammar school in Kibworth dating back 600 years. It is currently situated on the southern outskirts of Leicester city, in an area considered to be relatively affluent.
The Sixth Form is one of the country’s largest, with over one thousand of the college’s 2150 students enrolled. 58 per cent of all students are from ethnic minority backgrounds, including 39 per cent Indian, 6 per cent Asian and 13 per cent mixed, producing a rich and diverse centre of learning for students. 32 per cent of students have a first language other than English. The college has about one third of the national average proportion of students with learning difficulties and/ or disabilities. However the proportion of students with a statement of SEN is about average.
Beauchamp consistently achieves above the national average GCSE and A Level results and ‘outstanding’ Sixth Form Ofsted reports. Amongst its other achievements Beauchamp is an International School, with Leading Edge and Training School status. The college gained technology specialist status in 1996 and gained a second specialism in vocational education in 2006.
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
When schools are being blamed for not connecting young people with their communities, a key tool that helped young people to see that their communities are what they make them, not something that happens to them, has been swept away.
Under the previous Ofsted framework student voice (and thereby the importance of students to the school community) was emphasised in three ways:
Schools had to show in their Self-Evaluations Forms (SEFs) how they had engaged with and listened to students as part of their on-going strive to improve.
Ofsted inspectors met with students who had been elected by their peers as their representatives (the school council).
Ofsted wrote a clear, simple letter direct to students (via the school council) explaining the key findings of their inspection.*
All of these have disappeared.
All of them showed students that they had a stake in the school and their own education, they were not just raw material with which good teachers would make good grades and bad teachers would make bad grades.
Now it has been pointed out to me that good schools will do this anyway and I’m sure they will because they’ve seen the benefits, but it’s about getting those other schools to try it so they also see the benefits. Showcasing and sharing good practice is important but it can never provide the same impetus for schools that feel too nervous or busy to try things that the carrot/stick of an Ofsted grading can.
Once schools do get over that first hurdle they see how teaching and learning can be improved, how pupils’ self-confidence and communication skills grow and how pupils come to have a greater respect for a community they feel respects them. One of the most positive things Ofsted did was help schools take that first step. I fear that the new Ofsted framework will further widen the gap between those students who feel their community listens to them and those who don’t. We will end up with schools that produce young people with high grades but no skills with which to apply them. No understanding of teamwork, compromise, respect or self-determination. That’s not to say that the schools that do actively encourage students to express their views, collaborate and be critical thinkers won’t also get high grades, far from it, but their students will have so much more on top of the grades.
So what could Ofsted do? Well, given that they’re not going to reinstate the SEF, they should at least do numbers 2 and 3 above. They should extend to students the system that they will be releasing in October for surveying parents; this will give a much more complete and detailed picture (as staff and governors will be spoken to directly). They also need to define far more carefully what they mean by ‘take account of the spiritual, moral, social and cultural development of pupils when judging the overall effectiveness of the school’. But if they don’t act fast I think we will see a still nascent area of learning, student voice, disappear in many schools and with it any constructive way for many students to feedback on, engage with and improve their schools.
* This was also published online and I bet it was pretty useful to many parents too, as it was much easier to read than the formulaic, lengthy and jargon-heavy main reports. Have a look for yourself (the letter to the pupils is at the bottom): Welbourne Primary School Ofsted Report 2009
An email I received from a teacher friend last week (name and school removed to avoid blushes):
hey
I’m revamping my department handbook and I’m at the policy section, i’d really like an amazing students voice policy but I know we are very medicore at it so
HELP
________________________________
??? ???
Head of Drama
Large London Comprehensive
My response:
KISS: Keep It Simple, Stupid - I know the picture's not that relevant, but it might help you remember the maxim.
Keep it simple. No more than a couple of sentences on each.
Why is student voice important to us (staff and students)?
What does this mean in our work (what influence will students have in decision-making and T&L)?
What does this look like (list any particular activities that will take place – evaluations, students as teachers, etc.)
How will we measure success (what are your success criteria, how and when will you measure them)?
When and how will you review this policy?
So the whole thing should be no more than a page in your handbook.
I would obviously suggest you work on all of these questions with your staff and students. A very simple way to do this would be to write down your first thoughts an d give them to groups of students and your staff to comment on. This could be done online using Google Docs so people could see how others are updating it and many people can work on it at once.
Regards,
Asher
I think this would stand pretty well for writing a new policy for most things. What do you think?
