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.
The last little idea I posted was about how to improve chairing of meetings. This one will help to ensure that your meetings cover the range of things they need to.
The issue
Meetings get stuck on a certain issue or type of issue, which results in one or more of the following problems:
The work of the council only deals with one area (e.g. fundraising events) rather than addressing the whole of school life.
The council spends all its time on projects so provides no forum for raising issues.
The council spends all its time raising issues, so takes no action.
The council only discusses issues suggested by the headteacher and doesn’t have time to deal with its own ideas.
The suggestion
Split your meeting in to sections that will remain the same every meeting. Examples:
Issues to be passed on (no discussion needed), Issues that may need discussion, Project updates.
Quick win issues and projects, Longer-term issues and projects
Issues from headteacher, Issues from classes
Allocate an amount of time you will spend on each section. This doesn’t need to be an equal spilt, it should reflect the importance and complexity of each issue.
When drawing up the agenda things need to fit in to one of these sections.
When people are proposing items for the agenda they need to say which section they feel their issue fits under.
This should be done transparently so that people can see why there isn’t time for their item on the agenda.
The outcome
More projects on the go at any one time.
Meetings that have scope for teacher-led consultation, student-identified issues and student-led projects.
Additional ideas
If you are facing more than one of the issues above, you can split each section in to sub-sections, for example by having ‘New issues’ and ‘Project updates’ under each of the project type headings (‘Fundraising & Events’, etc.).
Using the project type headings you could split your council into sub-committees so you have named people working on a variety of issues.
Evaluate regularly: is the split you’ve decided upon creating the mix of discussion you were aiming for? If not propose how it might be changed.
Sample agenda
This is how an agenda drawn up in this way might look
Item
Person
Time
1. Apologies
Secretary
1 min
2. Approval of last minutes
Chair
1 min
3. New issues from classes (max 20 min)
3A. Ensuring homework is returned on time
Jeremy
5 mins
3B. Making water fountains accessible
Asha
5 mins
3C. Late, urgent issues
Chair
4. Project updates (max 20 mins)
4A. Learning survey
Orla
5 mins
4B. Creating a new travel plan
Danny
5 mins
4C. End of term party
Sandra
10 mins
5. Any other urgent project updates
Chair
6. Date of next meeting
Secretary
1 min
You may not always have enough to discuss to fill the maximum time in each section, that’s fine. Don’t allocate the time to other things, finish the meeting early. You decided on the split for a reason based on importance. It should slowly encourage people in to bringing up the kinds of issues that are important.
Wildern School in Southampton approaches student voice through UNICEF’s Rights Respecting Schools model. It’s a great example of how this approach can achieve whole-school improvements. You can read more student voice case studies here.
Key benefits:
A school that is well-suited to the needs of students and the way they want to learn. Students realise that they can (and have) changed major policies and decisions in the school. This helps them to feel engaged in the school.
Better behaviour. The “rights, respect and responsibility” ethos (drawn from the UNICEF’s Rights Respecting Schools Award) gives teachers and students consistent language and expectations across the school. It helps students to understand what right and wrong is.
A proactive and positive student body that improves the school in many ways. Students feel confident to suggest ideas because they are encouraged, supported and trusted to do so.
“It’s good knowing that you can come to school and know that you’re not going to be talked at all day.”
Student council member, Year 9
Top advice
Link everything to the school’s core values, in this case ‘rights, respect and responsibilities’. Links should be made at every relevant opportunity– from schemes of work in the curriculum, to school improvement groups, assemblies, theme days and parental engagement.
Remind people about these values, and how they relate to student-led change. Put posters up around the school and in classrooms, get on the school TVs, and remind staff and students in person.
Trust students. It is their school, and teachers are there to help them learn in an exciting and challenging way.
Set up systems so that students do not have to wait ages to get permission from teachers to move forward. The school has a senior leadership team (SLT) e-proposal form that any student can fill in to email to the SLT. Students have to fully consider an idea or suggestion and can get a quick permission to continue.
Get the right staff member to support it:
“Good student voice doesn’t cost anything. Put the right member of staff to facilitate it, give them time to do it, and start listening to all.”
Deputy headteacher
Start small and take the ‘sowing seeds’ approach. Do not expect to transform participation in school overnight, but start with a small-scale and focused project that you can demonstrate clear results from.
Help reluctant members of staff to see the importance in student voice by asking students to show them the value of student-led projects. They will start to see that students’ ideas are realistic and considered, and that it is not a ‘top-down’ trend from SLT.
Methods used:
Rights Respecting Schools Award
In 2007, students worked on a diversity project with a local school. As part of this, they became aware of UNICEF’s Rights Respecting Schools Award and the three R’s (rights, respect and responsibilities). Students were keen to bring this ethos to Wildern, and successfully encouraged the school to begin a specific project with new Year 7s.
A few years later, this ethos has really taken hold in the school. As the headteacher puts it, the three Rs are “the philosophy of the school” and the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child forms “the foundation” of everything they do.
The school have since received their Level 2 Rights Respecting Schools Award and are an excellent example of what can be done with Rights Respecting Schools.
Range of ways for students to get their voice heard
There a wide range of ways for students to have a say in their learning and their school. These are all linked to, and supported by, Article 12 of the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child. These different projects include the school council, Voting Voice, school focus groups, student evaluators, department student voice meetings, virtual learning environment (VLE) forums, and class discussions.
Voting Voice
All students can have a direct impact on school issues through the Voting Voice system. An issue is picked that all tutor groups discuss at the same time. Views and votes are collected and collated from across the whole school.
This is a great way to encourage whole-school involvement in big projects, but also small issues in the school too.
School improvement groups
One of the successful ways that students get involved in school improvement is through a range of school improvement groups (SIGs).
These student-led groups that work on particular areas in the school. They include groups like Wildern TV, Community Cohesion, Creative Partnership, Learning to Learn and Developing PLTS (personal learning and thinking skills) in the classroom.
About the school:
Wildern School is a very large and heavily oversubscribed 11–16 comprehensive school serving the Hedge End, West End and Eastleigh areas of Southampton. As a community school it is open seven days a week providing a range of facilities and activities for local adults and young people. The school has been awarded specialist status in Performing Arts and is designated as a High Performing Specialist School Raising Achievement and Transforming Learning. It is also a Leading Edge school.
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
“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
“Everything we do is about improving the opportunities and life chances of young people. If they can see that they are helping to design their learning they are more engaged.”
Community Director
Key benefits
Engagement has improved which has meant behaviour and attainment have too. This has shifted students away from a pattern of disaffection with educational experience inherited from their families.
Students love the responsibility membership of the Design Team offers them and rise to the challenge.
A small number of sixth-form students are employed on a part-time basis to provide classroom support in Performing Arts and PE.
Top advice
Students should not be consulted ‘as and when’ but be an integral part of the day-to-day running of the school. They should assume that they are able to put their ideas forward and staff are expected to engage with them. This should be put in to school policy.
The Design Team has a core of key members but allow others to opt in and out of student voice roles – different people will be passionate about different things. Use that passion, but do not force the engagement.
Use the media to engage other students and keep them informed. Students speak to other students in ‘their language’, magazines, video and online.
Examine your curriculum: remove repetition and be creative. Through doing this, New Line Learning Academy has shortened the Key Stage 3 curriculum and given students access to Level 3 courses earlier. Create space and time for this equally important work on personal development and engagement – student discussion and well-being have equal status to academic study.
“If it’s important, and these things are, we just find the time. This is part of their learning.”
Community Director
Methods used
Design Team
The Design Team is a group drawn from across the school, anybody can be on it. They are the focal point for student voice within the school. They help to design all aspects of the school, from the logo and uniform to aspects of the curriculum.
Students volunteer themselves and can join and leave at any time. Whilst this creates some fluidity in the membership, there is also a core group of students who have specific roles. They are the heart of the Design Team and ensure that it keeps running.
The main method they use to ensure they represent the whole of the school is maintaining the diversity of their Design Team. They also use the daily 30-minute ‘well-being sessions’ in their year groups to discuss issues which are taken back to the main Design Team meetings. For more formal information gathering from the whole-school or specific year groups they create surveys in SharePoint which can be pushed to all students through the VLE. They also use a team of ‘social reporters’- Y10 students trained to use digital media to report on social issues – to examine issues and create debate. These stories often reflect external community issues and bridge the school-community interface.
Peer mentoring
A group of volunteers have been trained jointly with students from Tunbridge Girls Grammar School to provide peer support on both a social and emotional level to other students in the school. This focused on active listening and helping people to access the appropriate support structures in school for more serious issues.
Using students in this role “bridges the gap between staff and students”; those students who feel more comfortable talking to staff can and those who would rather talk to a peer can do that. A side-benefit is that it is also a very cost-effective way of improving the ratio of ‘supporters’ to those needing support. Having ‘more ears to the ground’ has enabled the school to deal with issues more quickly, before they escalate. The school’s external assessors have noted the improvement in engagement and behaviour.
Student Observers
The school felt that for their students to reach their academic potential they needed to understand what good learning and teaching is. The school uses observation as a regular, ongoing part of staff CPD (continuous professional development). It was felt that getting feedback from students as well as peers and managers gave everyone a better picture. So the scheme is used to give both students and staff a greater understanding of how learning is happening.
This was introduced gradually, but all staff are expected to participate. Students volunteer and are trained in observation and debriefing by the vice-principal, who is also an Ofsted inspector. Whilst all involved so far have found it to be beneficial and enjoyable the scheme is monitored and evaluated to improve development.
Student interviewers
It is now school policy that all teaching and pastoral appointments will involve a student interview panel. The students work with the vice-principal and the human resources manager to discuss questions and themes. The students then interview prospective candidates with a member of staff present who does not intervene. The student panel then gives feedback to the full appointments panel.
“It’s the best part of the process. Students are major (I don’t like the word, but) stakeholders. They have insights into things we may not pick up on. It’s about collective responsibility.”
Community Director
Performing Arts and Sports leaders
Sixth formers studying Sports or Performing Arts Studies are given the opportunity to become sports leaders and performing arts leaders. They are then able to help out in the classes of students lower down the school. This has huge benefits for all involved, raising self-esteem, improving aspirations and attainment. It means that GCSE students can get advice from people who have recently achieved the qualification themselves, and benefit from the greater number of people there to support them. Those taking on the leadership roles further develop their sense of responsibility and understanding of learning and teaching.
Another important benefit the school has found is using these leaders as auxiliary staff to assist with after-school activities and hires of the school facilities by external organisations and individuals. This allows the school to employ these leaders for a few hours a week, which is very helpful in keeping them in education, especially since the Education Maintenance Allowance (EMA) is no longer available to them. They also provide a useful service to the school in this way and get real work experience.
The school also uses these sports and performing arts leaders to improve their relationship with the local primary schools. Along with staff from New Line Learning Academy they go out to run sports, dance and drama activities for the primary pupils.
About the school
New Line Learning Academy is one of two academies run by the Future Schools Trust. New Line Learning and
Cornwallis Academies share a governing body and an executive principal, but each is led on a day-to-day basis by a head of school. The academy has specialisms in business and enterprise and in vocational studies. The school moved in to a brand new building in September 2010.
The academy accepts students of all abilities although it operates in a selective area. It is smaller than the average secondary school. Most of the students are of White British heritage, with a small number from a range of minority ethnic groups. Some of these students are at the early stages of learning English. The proportion of students known to be eligible for a free school meal is double the national average and over half have special educational needs or a disability. Students’ difficulties mainly relate to their learning or behaviour. The academy’s roll includes a small number of looked after children.
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
Working with primary school councils in Oldham and Haringey over the last two days I ran in to the same issue that so many schools and their councils struggle with: can we get beyond talking about the toilets?
The simple suggestion I gave to them is to split their School Council in to Action Teams. This ensures that their school councils look beyond the physical and start to deal with all the things that are going on in their schools. We find these Action Teams cover most aspects of what goes on in school:
Learning
Helping everyone to enjoy learning
Trips
Bringing people in to the school
What happens in class
Relationships
Helping people have fun
Stopping bullying
Making school friendly
Fundraising & Events
Finding out what needs money
Making money
Putting on competitions, shows and special days
Environment
Saving energy
Recycling
Making sure the school looks good
Getting fun equipment
Communication
Letting people know what’s going on
Getting ideas
Assemblies
Website
Noticeboard
If you just want to have four Action Teams you could miss out Communication, but then you need to make sure all other groups share responsibility for this and report back on their communication each time.
So all items brought up from class council meetings, suggestion boxes, from the school council blog, etc. get allocated to the most appropriate Action Team by the Chair and Secretary (with support from the Link Teacher if they need it). The Action Teams then need to meet to discuss those issues and figure out which ones they can take action on (if nothing has been suggested for an Action Team, they need to seek something out). These actions are then what is taken to the full School Council meeting for ratification. You could fit in this extra meeting by replacing every other School Council meeting with Action Team meetings or by having the Action Team meetings for the first third or half of the time allocated for the School Council meeting.
The school council meeting becomes a way to co-ordinate all the pupil-led activities and to check that no actions will adversely affect any pupils. So it has a standing agenda of:
Item
Person
Time
1
Apologies (from people who can’t make the meeting)
Secretary
1 min
2
Check last meeting’s minutes (to make sure they’re correct)
Chair
2 mins
3
Learning Action Team
Report on actions from last time (matters arising)
What we are going to do this time (for agreement)
LAT Chair
5 mins
4
Relationships Action Team
Report on actions from last time (matters arising)
What we are going to do this time (for agreement)
RAT Chair
5 mins
5
Fundraising and Events Action Team
Report on actions from last time (matters arising)
What we are going to do this time (for agreement)
FaEAT Chair
5 mins
6
Environment Action Team
Report on actions from last time (matters arising)
What we are going to do this time (for agreement)
EAT Chair
5 mins
7
Communication Action Team
Report on actions from last time (matters arising)
What we are going to do this time (for agreement)
CAT Chair
5 mins
8
Any other business (A.O.B.)
Chair
2 mins
9
Date of next meeting
Secretary
1 min
This way the meetings should be focussed on action, should discuss more than just what colour to paint the toilets and be quicker – as the reports are not for in-depth discussion, just for ratification.
