Tag: school councils

Categories
involver blog Resources

Broadening the scope of meetings

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

  1. Split your meeting in to sections that will remain the same every meeting. Examples:
    • Fundraising & Events, Buildings & Environment, Learning & Teaching, Relationships & Behaviour
    • New issues from classes, Project updates
    • 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
  2. 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.
  3. When drawing up the agenda things need to fit in to one of these sections.
  4. When people are proposing items for the agenda they need to say which section they feel their issue fits under.
  5. 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.

Download this idea as a PDF: [download id=”245″]

Categories
Case Studies involver blog

School council and student voice case study: St James CE Primary School

Key quote:

“It’s their [the pupils’] school, not my school. Adults need to work in partnership with children.”

Headteacher

Key benefits:

  • Raised profile of and pride in the school.
  • The school is now leading and assisting others to improve their practice.
  • Virtually eliminated vandalism.
  • Greatly improved behaviour and relationships between students, students and teachers and students and parents. Everyone takes responsibility for their own behaviour.
  • Reduced absenteeism.
  • Creates confident learners who have constructive relationships with each other.
  • Improved attainment (SATs scores).

Top advice

Create a culture of equal respect, rights and responsibilities. Everything flows from this. It allows staff and students to see themselves as part of a community with shared values and goals.

Examine your core purpose. Realise that school is about getting every child to develop as a person, not SATs or pleasing Ofsted. The headteacher’s role is to act as a ‘gatekeeper’ to ensure staff and students are free to get on with those things that address the core purpose.

Involve all students in evaluating and writing your school development plan (SDP). Create something everyone can understand, make it very public and ensure everyone refers back to it throughout the year.

Methods used:

Rights Respecting Schools Award

When the current headteacher took over the school had been without a permanent headteacher for 5 years, morale was low and the school was not well thought of in the area. The new headteacher started conversations with all staff about what they saw as the core purpose of the school. Together the staff and pupils started to take ownership of the school and refocus it. A governor discovered the Rights Respecting Schools Award scheme and saw that it fitted in well with the direction the school was moving in. It has since become central to everything the school does. The linking of rights and responsibilities has improved relationships across the school and externally.

Some parents initially expressed reservations as they felt that children “already know their rights”, but as the firm link between rights and responsibilities has been learned parents see how they can use this with their children. They have found this to be empowering and it has meant that where previously there may have been conflict now conversations can take place. An example given by the headteacher was of parents and children discussing parents’ responsibility to ensure children get enough sleep so that they can take advantage of their right to education. Without the language of rights and responsibilities this may have been a shouting match.

The headteacher has become an evangelist for Rights Respecting Schools because of the impact she has seen it have on her school and pupils. It does not just deal with rules, behaviour and relationships, but feeds in to every aspect of the school day. Lessons, environmental issues and food are all spoken about in the framework of rights and responsibilities.

The culture of listening and discussion has built great self-confidence in the pupils as well as giving them an understanding of their role in the school community. Pupils who moved up to the secondary school were reporting that, “secondary school treats us like babies; they do not let us make any decisions.” So the headteacher from the local high school visited St James’ and was so impressed with the understanding and maturity demonstrated in the discussions the pupils were having that the schools are now working together to improve involvement of students at the secondary school.

“If children are respecting adults, then adults should respect the children. It has to work both ways.”

Year 6 pupil

School principles, not rules

With the new found self-confidence of the pupils, a challenge was laid down to the new headteacher by one of the Year 5 pupils who was often getting in to trouble:

Year 5 pupil: “I want to talk to you about school, and you. You keep telling us that school’s about real life, well you’re wrong it’s not. And school rules, they’re rubbish. Rules aren’t about real life, rules are about control. And the reason we have rules in school are not to do with real life they’re to do with adults controlling children. And rules are nothing to do with real life, they’re place-specific (this is the phrase she used). When was the last time you went to Morrison’s and put your hand up at the deli counter to get some cheese? You don’t, do you? You wait your turn and you ask nicely.”

Headteacher: “But if you don’t have rules it’s called anarchy.”

Year 5 pupil: “No, you’re not listening to me. What I’m saying is, it shouldn’t be about control and it shouldn’t be place-specific, it should be about responsibility that people accept. So what we need are principles that go underneath everything we do and then it won’t matter who we are or where we are. And I’ve thought it through, we need three:

  • Be respectful,
  • be responsible and
  • be ready to learn.

If we do that it sums everything up. If we respect ourselves, other people and our world and we’re responsible for everything we think, say and do; we take responsibility for our actions towards other people and we take responsibility for our actions in the world and if we’re ready to learn here and now and there and then it won’t matter whether there are rules or not, because everybody would get on. So they should be our principles, Miss.”

This idea was taken to the school council and then to the governors and has become school policy. It has meant that people are responsible for the own behaviour and think about how their behaviour impacts on others, rather than just whether their behaviour will get them in to trouble. It means that there is one set of principles for the whole-school, not rules for teachers and rules for pupils.

Two tier council structure: school council and committees

Each class elects six representatives, two to each of three committees:

  • Eco-schools
  • Healthy Schools
  • Rights Respecting

Each of these has specific areas of responsibility that they discuss with their class in class meetings and then meet together to work on. Members of these committees then stand to be on the school council. This means that all the pupil-led work of the school can be co-ordinated by the school council but more people are involved in carrying it out.

After pupils are elected they are trained to run their committees, and they then do so with no staff support, so the projects and voices coming through are not tempered by staff. The school council meets every Friday and then meets with the governors every half-term to get their support for what the pupils are doing.

Student involvement with the school development plan (SDP)

As with any school, the SDP lays out what the school is aiming to achieve over the next year or more. The difference at St James’ is that rather than being a document referred to (rarely) only by the governors and the senior managers, the SDP has pride of place on its own noticeboard in the school’s entrance. The whole SDP is only two pages long and is written in language that everyone in the school can understand. It is surrounded by the evaluation of last year’s plan in the form of pictures and quotations from pupils, staff and parents.

The SDP is evaluated and written on a yearly cycle. After a new school council has been elected they consult with the whole-school on how well they feel all the targets set out in the previous year’s SDP have been met. They also ask every class, “what do the grown-ups in the school need to do to make you better learners?” The results of these consultations are brought together with the views of staff, governors and parents to form the new SDP. Everything the school does then flows from this plan, and it is there to be referred to by anyone involved with the school.

About the school:

St James is a school of average size serving the village of Wardle. It is situated in an area of some social disadvantage. The proportion of pupils entitled to free school meals is above average.

Almost all pupils are of White British backgrounds and none are learning English as an additional language. The proportion of pupils with learning difficulties and/or disabilities is average although the percentage with a statement of special educational need is above average. The school holds the Activemark and Healthy Schools awards and the United Nations Rights Respecting School 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

Categories
Case Studies involver blog

School council and student voice case study: St Francis Xavier Catholic Primary School

A great case study from an inspiring primary school in the West Midlands. Read more of our school council case studies here.

Key quote:

“You can’t force children to get involved. But you can give them lots of chances and build their confidence slowly and they will start to take part.”

Student, Year 6

Key benefits:

  • Confident and articulate students who are willing and able to speak up about their ideas, and work together to put them into action.
  • Better behaviour from students who are proud of their school and what it achieves.
  • Students who are keen to learn and take responsibility for aspects of their learning.
  • Improved teaching and learning. Teachers who give students a say on their ‘learning journey’ are more flexible, adaptable and able to meet the needs of students.
  • A happy and cohesive school community that raises aspirations for students at the school.

Top advice

  • Buy-in from school leadership is crucial. It is really important to get the headteacher and senior leadership team involved in student voice and on your side. They need to be visibly promoting student voice in and around the school, supporting different projects. Crucially, they also need to be supporting staff to embrace student voice in their teaching and the different approach that this requires.
  • Staff will be more convinced of the value of student voice if they see the impact and appeal it has to students. Showcasing the students’ good work will help them to see the value in it, and get on board.
  • Encourage students and staff to listen to everyone’s ideas, even ones that are a bit silly. When students have trust and responsibility, students will quickly learn how to ask the right questions about projects and ideas. They will begin to realise and understand what an unrealistic idea looks like, and how to turn bad ideas into good ones.
  • Value everyone in the school. Not just the pupils and teachers, but governors, cleaning staff, technicians, teaching assistants and kitchen staff.
  • Taking risks is an important part of helping students to lead, and embracing student voice, but you will need senior management support to do this!
  • Give young people some ownership of their learning. Students who create their own learning journey, deciding on the how they learn, and what they learn (within boundaries) will be more engaged and perform better.

Methods used:

Friday Forums

On two Fridays every term, the school runs a Friday Forum. This is a really important way to show every child that it is their school and that their ideas to improve the school are really valued and listened to.

On each Friday Forum, children discuss a particular topic in their classes. These topics are picked and voted on by the school council and might be a topic like ‘learning’ or ‘safety’.

Pupils talk about what they would like to change or improve, and two representatives from each class then meet to present their thoughts to everyone in the school. A Friday Forum assembly is then planned, written and presented by Year 6 pupils who round up the feedback, and support them with statistics.

School council

The school also has a traditional school council with class council representatives in each class.

The school council is extremely popular and has an extremely high profile in the school. Every child would love the opportunity to be on it. It has recently improved the playground equipment for the school.

Student’s input into teaching and learning through learning journeys

The school is keen on co-construction of the curriculum, and gives students a significant say in choosing their ‘learning journey’ through a topic. Teachers introduce a topic and explore what students already know, what they are interested in, what they would like to learn and how they would like to learn it. Being able to customise their learning engages students. It has also helped teachers to be more flexible with their teaching styles, and more responsive to the changing needs of students. The school is a brave and challenging place to learn.

About the school:

St Francis Xavier Catholic Primary School serves two parishes in the urban West Midlands. This area is very mixed socially and many pupils face social and economic disadvantage. Just under half of the pupils are from Catholic families. Over half the pupils come from a wide range of minority ethnic groups.

Twice the usual proportion of pupils start school with little or no English. An above average number of pupils have learning difficulties or disabilities. When children start in Nursery they have low levels of skills and knowledge.

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

Categories
Case Studies involver blog

School council and student voice case study: Little Heath School

Here’s a student voice case study from one of involver’s favourite schools, Little Heath School in Reading.

You can see more from their amazing student voice conference here , here and here.

Key quote:

“There’s lots of students that aren’t very sure, or are less confident to have a voice. We say that everyone has a voice. Even the shy pupils have a voice and can talk to anybody, can talk with teachers, try and get into the STARS group, and can really make a difference.”

School council member, Year 8

Key benefits:

  • Improved relationships between students and teaching staff. Teachers genuinely want to hear what students think, run with their ideas, and realise that good participation is often a step into the unknown. Students respond to this and like being taken seriously.
  • A school that meets the needs and learning styles of Little Heath students. Students who are keen to get involved in shaping important aspects of the school, and teachers who encourage and support them to do so.
  • Involving students in school life helps to turn around badly behaved students. Students realise that acting badly or being naughty are not the only ways to get noticed, and that they can get involved in student voice and try to improve the school.
  • More confident students who are willing to plan, organise and evaluate large events and influence major areas of school life.

Top advice

  • Give staff the time to support student voice. Student voice needs staff to make it work, who have the time and resources to be able to do it well. In Little Heath’s case, there is a passionate student voice coordinator with dedicated time in the week to support student voice. He is supported by an ex-pupil who has just finished Year 13, and is spending the year as a paid member of staff supporting student voice.
  • Hold dedicated events like a conference that allow you to get lots done with student voice projects.
  • Encourage students to get other students involved. Students having an influence and having fun at the same time are the best selling points to get others who are less interested involved.
  • You can help to get a wide range of students taking part when there is a wide range of ways to be involved. Hooks might be skills-based (like design or campaigning skills) or content based (like environment issues or politics).
  • Student involvement should not be an add on to the core work of the school. Students should be involved in helping to improve areas like teaching and learning – it will benefit everyone if they do. They just need to be organised in an appropriate way.
  • Have a central coordinating body for all student voice work – in Little Heath’s case this is the school council. It helps to avoid duplication and keep track of everything that is going on.

Methods used:

Student voice conference

Every year Little Heath holds a student voice conference in a local hotel in Reading. Several hundred pupils from the school come along and spend a focused day on student voice work. It is an exciting event for the students, who enjoy being able to concentrate on the different projects. This dedicated time helps the school to get lots done in a short space of time.

The student voice conference is a student-led project from start to finish, and it is an impressive example of how young people can run an amazing event.

As well as time for work on projects, there is a panel discussion in the afternoon so that students can ask questions to teachers, senior staff, local politicians and other organisations that have worked in the school.

Some of the work on the day, and throughout the school year, includes:

STARS project (students as researchers)

Students take a lead on researching and trying to improve certain aspects of school life. For example, one group in the STARS team had looked at ‘How students prefer to learn, and which ways are most effective’. They had looked at three specific subjects; English, History and ICT in Year 7 and 8. Their findings were presented to governors and the headteacher, and also in a booklet which is available to students.

Another group had looked at how popular homework is in Year 7, and the types of homework they enjoy. These projects have flourished since the conference, and one group’s look into the co-construction of learning is helping teachers to plan their lessons.

Student voice leaders

The student voice leaders are older students in the school who take a lead on the conference and facilitate the different sessions. They are a reminder that student voice is taken seriously in the school and getting involved in student voice can be a progression throughout school.

School council

A school council sits alongside the different student voice groups. This also has as an important role in school improvement. It has representatives from each year group and meets every week.

Recent topics for discussion include homework, praise and reward and students’ rights and responsibilities. It is the central forum for student voice in the school, and all other groups feed into the school council.

About the school:

Little Heath School is a larger than average oversubscribed comprehensive school with a large sixth form. It has specialist college status in mathematics and science and in 2008 gained a second specialism as a high performing specialist school for ‘raising achievement transforming learning’.

The proportion of students eligible for a free school meal is low. The proportion of students from minority ethnic groups or who speak English as an additional language is below average. The proportion of students with a learning difficulty and/or disability is slightly below average and there are fewer students with statements of special educational needs than nationally.

 

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

Categories
Case Studies involver blog

School council and student voice case study: Wroxham School

Here’s the first in our great school council and student voice case studies that we did for the Children’s Commissioner.

It’s from Wroxham School in Potters Bar, Hertfordshire. Great stuff!

Key quote:

What the teachers had in common were the principles of:

  • Trust – that we trusted children and that the children felt that they could trust us;
  • A sense of co-agency – so not only was it important that you listen to the child, but that the child listen to you, that together you can take something much further forward than if you were just in a passive mode, listening:
  • The ethic of everybody – ie that it’s not just the people that are easy to engage that matter, it’s everybody.

Headteacher, Wroxham School

Key benefits of student voice:

The school was in special measures, it was turned around not by a headteacher telling everyone what to do, but by creating a culture where everyone is listened to and is asking the question ‘how could we improve?’

Students are eloquent and keen to talk about their learning, when they join secondary school they perform well because they understand how to learn and are eager to do so.

Top advice

  • Student voice is not about structures it is about ethos, vision and values.
  • Do not think ‘voice’ is just about what people say. The way students behave reflects how they feel, it is a way they express themselves and give feedback. Pay attention to it and try to understand where it comes from.
  • Participation is about whole-school culture. Ensure that staff are listened to as well as students.
  • Create a culture of trust, not judgement so you enable everyone to learn. Do not give out grades, support people to self-assess. They become more aware of their learning and challenge themselves to learn more.
  • Do not force staff in to a way of teaching or running their classrooms, engage them in conversation: ask them whether what they do in class allows children to surprise them.

Methods used:

Whole school approach to democracy

Everything the school does is about including the whole-school community in decision-making and getting everyone to work out ‘the answers’ together. Efforts are made in the staff team as well as with students to ensure that everyone feels equally able to contribute. The hierarchy is minimal so democracy can be seen as a real choice: it is worth saying something because you have as much chance to be listened to as everyone else. In this way democracy is not something that fits uneasily (or pretends to fit) within the strict hierarchy of the school.

Another aspect of this is the school’s refusal to give out grades or stream its pupils. It is seen to be incompatible with a view that everyone and their opinions are equally valued. Instead, an approach of co-construction and co-agency is fostered, where staff and pupils work together to understand how learning can best happen for each child.

Mixed age circle groups led by Y6

The circle groups led by Year 6 pupils demonstrate the whole-school democracy approach. Each circle group will have pupils of all ages involved as well as adults, who take part as equal members. The Year 6 pupils have been given the leadership role rather than the member of staff. This helps to ensure that the views that come from these groups are authentically from the pupils, not mediated by staff. That is not to say staff cannot have an input, but they are there as participants – participants with different levels of experience and knowledge – they are not controlling the discussions.

These meetings follow a standard format to give those running them confidence that they can do it. An agenda is worked out across the whole-school that all of the circle groups follow. To begin each meeting the Year 6 leaders run a game and share news about what has been happening across the school. They then discuss the agenda that has been agreed. This has built mutual understanding across the age ranges in the school and makes the older children more tolerant and aware of the needs and wants of the younger children.

Having these meetings weekly means that the younger pupils quickly become used to them and find their voices. It also ensures that most issues are small ones; issues are spotted early and ‘nipped in the bud’.

Student self-evaluation

In place of teachers grading pupils, students are expected to self-evaluate. This gives them a much greater sense of what they are learning, how they are learning and what they would like to improve upon. The headteacher says it has created a culture where is it “cool to challenge yourself”. As there is no judgement of ‘failure’ there is trust between pupils and between pupils and staff. Pupils can choose to redo things to challenge themselves further and learn more.

Writing their own reports

Students are given reminders of the topics they have covered and asked to write down what they learned (their ‘successes’) and what they struggled with (their ‘challenges’). Younger children are buddied with older ones who type up the reports for them. They can add photographs and drawings to demonstrate their learning. This information is then shared and discussed with the teacher who responds to the points made by the pupil and adds in any other successes or challenges she feels the pupil has overlooked. There is a meaningful dialogue between pupil and teacher, which creates a meaningful dialogue between pupil and parent about learning. All of this is done without grading or putting the pupil down, so pupils can fully understand where they are succeeding and what they can do to improve.

Pupil-led parent evenings

Parents evenings run in a way that supports this process. Pupils create a short presentation for their parents about what they have been doing, their successes and challenges. They present this to their parents and their teacher; the headteacher sits in, makes notes and contributes. They can then discuss this all together and revisit what was discussed at previous meetings. In this way everyone is kept up to date with progress and they actually understand what has been going on in the classroom. Furthermore the child has ownership over her own learning and takes responsibility for her successes and sees the challenges as just that, rather than failings.

“Children talk comprehensively and passionately about their own learning.”

Headteacher

Students deciding on the curriculum

“Even the curriculum here [is influenced by students]. They give us all the ideas of what they want to learn about. They’re just so much more engaged.”

Year 5 Teacher

Having rigorous structures of evaluation and monitoring that are not based on standardised grades or tests creates the freedom for pupils and classroom staff to make important decisions about the curriculum. It allows classes to respond to sudden interests of the children, maybe sparked by current world or local events – so the week after the March 2011 tsunami in Japan a Year 5 class was studying earthquakes and tsunamis at the request of the pupils.

Topics are discussed with pupils and their areas of interest form the key areas of study for the scheme.

About the school

The Wroxham School is average in size. It is popular and heavily oversubscribed. The majority of pupils are White British although there are pupils from a wide range of ethnic heritage. English is an additional language for a few pupils. The proportion of pupils with learning difficulties and/or disabilities is below average as is the proportion of pupils with statements detailing their educational needs. The number of pupils eligible for free school meals is below average.

Fewer pupils join or leave the school throughout the school year than is generally seen. The Early Years Foundation Stage includes a nursery, which operates a flexible provision. Attainment on entry to the nursery draws on a full range of abilities but overall is generally typical for this age of children. The school has gained national and international recognition for aspects of its work. It has gained awards for Investors in People and Financial Management in schools. It has also been awarded Healthy School status. The school provides a breakfast and after school club.

 

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

Categories
involver blog

My day as a Director of involver by Martell, Age 11 #takeoverday2011

Today, Welbourne prefects took over as a director for take over day.

I thinked they loved it because it is a big opportunity for them to see how it is to be in someone else’s shoes for a day.

Melanie said:

“I thought it was brilliant because it was very interactive”

Kenoly said:

“Oh it  was the best day ever”

Martell said:

“This day could never get better”

Austina said:

“IT WAS THE BEST DAY EVER!!!!!! COULDN’T GET BETTER”

By your prefect Martell, Age 11

___________________________________

Thanks Martell, great blog and video!

It was a really useful day for us too. As a result of the pupils’ help, we’ve improved the programme for a forthcoming school council event, will do a new student voice quiz, and have lots of new contacts in Haringey schools.

Here’s some more snaps from the day. Thanks to Michael Antoniou for taking them, the students for coming in, and the Children’s Commissioner for organising such an important project.