Tag: research

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involver blog

Student voice in your SOLE

In 1999 a group of educational researchers put an internet connected PC in the wall of a New Delhi slum. Then they left it alone. Children from the slum gathered around this ‘hole in the wall’ and, with no direction, taught themselves how to use the computer and browse the internet simply through their own curiosity.

When Dr. Sugata Mitra presented these findings online it was so compelling that his lectures went viral and Mitra was propelled to the status of a minor internet celebrity.

Now, after a decade of follow up research into the effectiveness of child led learning, Sugata is inviting educators from all backgrounds to take part in a wider experiment. By providing groups of children with a Self-Organised Learning Environment (SOLE), the experiment aims to find effective ways of encouraging students to embrace their innate curiosity and use this as their incentive to learn in a broad range of environments, be it in the classroom or the home. This works by posing stimulating, profound or weird questions and letting the children approach the subject in their own way, with minimal outside interference.

At involver we are very excited about the ideas behind this experiment and we think it could potentially have far reaching implications for student voice. By allowing children to take charge of their learning it promotes a culture where they are not only encouraged but expected to contribute and be listened to. A SOLE might, for example, be a great way to get students to prepare a proposal to the school council: students would be responsible for the questions asked, and they would be free to answer them in innovative and exploratory ways.

Imagine the feedback you could receive by posing questions like, ‘why do people from all over the world come to our school?’, ‘who is school for?’, or even ‘what is learning?’, to a group of children, and then leaving them to discuss, explore and discover their own answers. We strongly encourage educators to participate in this experiment so education systems all over the world can benefit from the insights we may find in the results.

If you would be interested in learning more about Sugata’s research you can find his profile at TED.com, or to get involved with the SOLE experiment you can download the toolkit available with directions and advice on how to set one up.

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involver blog

School councils in Poland

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.

Polish School Council Noticeboard
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.

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involver blog Resources

‘How to’ guide on student voice

Here’s the first part of our findings from a brilliant research project that we worked on for the Children’s Commissioner.

It’s all about best practice in student voice, and here’s a short ‘How to’ guide with as much advice as we could possibly fit onto two pages. Feel free to download and share.

You can download here: [download id=”237″]

The research came from in-depth research in 16 schools across England who have great student voice, and looking at the values, principles and practices that underpin their success. Great to see so many and varied benefits that schools are seeing. There’s a full report to be issued in a few weeks.

Thank you to the schools that took part, and for the Children’s Commissioner for getting us in to do such a great project!

Greg

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Citizenship involver blog

Pathways Through Participation: lessons for schools

The excellent Pathways Through Participation project has just published its final reports (in summary and full detail). They’re really worth a read for anyone looking to improve participation in schools. Whilst their focus was on adults – what gets them in to active citizenship, what keeps them involved – the lessons they’ve drawn from it hold true for young people too.

I particularly liked these simple equations:

Why participation starts, continues or stops
Participation equations from Pathways Through Participation: Why participation starts, continues and stops.

It’s vital to remember that in a community as diverse as a school the motivations and triggers will need to be many and varied to engage a wide variety of students. Just having a school council isn’t enough. A school council that sees its role as ‘involvers‘ – as people whose job it it is to figure out what would involve other students – would be a great start. The role of the staff then is to add in the other part of the equation, creating opportunities and ensuring the resources are in place for students to take advantage of them.

Pathways Through Participation is a project of Involve (who are friends of ours, but we’re not related), the NCVO and the Institute for Volunteering Research. It was funded by the Big Lottery Fund.

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Newsletters Resources

Newsletter 9: Weddings, MPs and Smart School Councils

Hello from involver – newsletter number 9

Sorry there was no newsletter last month but we got a bit distracted by Asher’s wedding. We promise it won’t happen again (at least until Greg gets married).

Resource: Get a politician in to your school
This free resource from the Hansard Society shows you how to get the most out of bringing an MP or Peer in to your school. There are also tips for how to get them there in the first place. Order your copy here:
http://www.hansardsociety.org.uk/blogs/citizenship_education/archive/2010/10/28/2779.aspx

Resource: Young people’s governance in schools
A new short guide from Participation Works that looks full of useful information for those involved in running schools. You can buy a copy here:
http://www.participationworks.org.uk/resources/how-to-involve-children-and-young-people-in-school-governance

Video: Challenging educational paradigms through student voice
Project REAL is the way in which this school in Australia is trying to reassess the way they teach and learn. These two videos from the students explain how they’re doing it and why they feel it’s important. Really worth a watch:
http://ihsprojectreal.wordpress.com/

Research: Student voice reading list
We met with ARK last week and they wanted us to persuade them that student voice should be central to the school’s they’re setting up in Uganda. We created this list of research on the subject for them. What have we missed?
http://involver.org.uk/2011/07/student-voice-reading-list/

Community: Smart School Councils help each other out
The Smart School Councils Community is a new charity we’re setting up along with students and teachers from 15 founder schools. It will be free for anyone to join and share good practice on how to involve your whole school in student voice. Watch this space:
http://www.smartschoolcouncils.org.uk

Awards: John Bercow awards best school council projects
Body image, anti-vandalism, LGBT sensitivity, classroom pets and Ecostars projects were selected by the Speaker of the House of Commons (and friends) as the winners of the Speaker’s School Council Awards 2011. We had a great time helping out at the ceremony:
http://involver.org.uk/2011/07/a-fun-day-at-the-speakers-school-council-awards/

And now we’re off to help judge Haringey Junior Citizens Debate, which should be great fun,

Greg and Asher

http://twitter.com/doingdemocracy
http://facebook.com/involver.org.uk

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involver blog

Student voice reading list

Bibliography image by sukisuki on FlickrLast week we met with educational charity and academy sponsor, ARK, to talk about student voice and school councils. They’re going to be setting up a number of new schools in Uganda and wanted to know whether and how they should embed student voice in them.

Naturally, we’d love the opportunity to see schools with student voice as part of their founding principles, rather than something (often awkwardly) added later on. So I put together this reading list for them.

This isn’t an exhaustive list and I’m sure there are many important things I’ve missed. What are they? Add links in the comments below.

ARK are especially keen on quantitative data that show a link between increased student voice and improved attainment, do you know of any? Again, add links or references in the comments. Thanks.