Tag: school/student/pupil council

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Pupil interview panels – getting it right

Over the last couple of days a motion being discussed at the NASUWT (National Association of Schoolmasters/Union of Women Teachers) to strike over increasing student voice has sparked a number of alarmist articles across the press. (Click here for our formal response).

Essentially they pull out a few examples of bad or questionable practice of involving pupils in the interview process and from there draw the conclusion that pupils shouldn’t be listened to. So the NASUWT has found a few examples of where schools appear to have managed the process badly and so  want to ban the process completely.  I’m suggesting a different approach: get schools to manage the process well.

I’ve worked in many schools where they’ve found the process invaluable because pupils give them a different perspective on the candidates. Most of them use a process something like this:

  1. Governors decide on your interview process, how the day will be run and what role pupils will play in this (bearing in mind that any decision of who to employ is ultimately down to the governors).
  2. Write down the process and responsibilities and share with all involved, including pupils and prospective candidates (i.e. put it in the application pack).
  3. Get together a representative group of pupils, explain the process to them, including how much weight their views will be given. This maybe your school council or a group s/elected for this purpose, but here we’ll assume it’s the school council.
  4. Get the school council members to go to other classes in the school (how many depends on the role being applied for, for a Head you may want them to go to all classes):
    1. Discuss,  ‘what makes a good Head/Deputy/Teacher/etc.?’
    2. Each class should decide on the top 3 qualities/skills.
    3. These should be recorded by the school council representative.
  5. The school council should be given training on:
    1. Confidentiality
    2. Active listening
    3. Open v. Closed questions
    4. Leading questions
    5. Questions candidates might ask
  6. The school council then discusses:
    1. What the other pupils have said makes a good Head/Deputy/Teacher/etc.?
    2. They choose the most important of these.
    3. What questions would you ask to find out if someone had each of these?
    4. What sort of answers would be good or bad?
  7. This list of questions is then drawn up along with a marking sheet for each of the questions/qualities.
  8. Setting up the pupil panel:
    1. The pupil panel is separate to the adult panel (ideally there should be no other adults in the room, where safeguarding good practice allows).
    2. One student is nominated as the chair.
    3. The pupil panel is not a ‘weeding out’ stage.
    4. Candidates are encouraged to ask the pupil panel questions to ensure this is a two-way process.
  9. As in formal interviews each candidate is asked the same set of questions. Each member of the pupil panel writes comments and marks on their marking sheet. After each candidate has left pupils discuss them and come to a joint conclusion. These are written down and passed to the adult interview panel.
  10. The pupil panel meets with the adult interview panel so the adult panel can ask for clarification or explanation of the pupil panel’s findings.
  11. The adult interview panel makes the decision on who to appoint. Giving whatever weight to the pupil’s views they feel it merits. If they wish to they can question the pupil panel on how they arrived at their decision.
  12. The application process is evaluated so that it can be improved for next time:
    1. Discussion with school council about how it went: did they ask the right types of questions; did they get the kinds of answers they were expecting, etc.?
    2. Where possible, discussion with candidates about how they felt about the process.

The benefits you’ll get from involving pupils in the interview process:

  • A wider variety of perspectives on candidates.
  • Candidates get a different view on the school.
  • Pupils learn something about what makes a good teacher (and how hard it is to be one).
  • You might learn something about what pupils value in a good teacher (I’ve never once seen the answer, ‘a pushover’).
  • Pupils learn about how interviews work, useful knowledge when entering the work force.
  • A good starting point for relationships between pupils and a new teacher.
  • It says that your school has pupils as its focus and that’s what you expect of your staff too.

And here are a few other people’s views on the benefits of pupils’ involvement in the interview process:

From staff and pupils: BBC News

From another governor (I mean other than me): Jaynehowarth’s Weblog

From Headteachers and another teaching union: ASCL (Association of School and College Leaders)

So, please don’t throw the baby out with the bath water, just improve the processes and training around involving pupils.

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Official response to NASUWT’s threat of industrial action

Easter weekend was a very interesting time on the student voice front. At its Annual Conference, NASUWT said they were considering striking because student voice is being taken too far.

Here’s our statement on the subject:

‘Successful organisations always consider ‘culture fit’ when making any appointment. With schools, it is natural to do this is by involving young people in teacher appointments, with the appropriate support.

The attack on student voice we’ve seen by NASUWT and sections of the press is un-measured and misconceived. Education cannot return to the days of simple knowledge transfer between teacher and student. This traditional approach to learning will not equip young people to face the modern world.

Student voice, when approached in a considered and clear way, is the best way to help young people to be active, questioning and informed citizens. This is exactly what Britain needs in 2010’

Here are six misconceptions that the NASUWT, and the press, are making about student voice:

Misconception The truth
Poor examples of student voice mean that the whole idea of student voice is a bad one Just because student voice has had negative, and isolated, consequences in some schools, it doesn’t mean that the whole concept isn’t a good idea.
Poor practice in student voice is widespread Thousands of schools across the country benefit from involving young people in important school decisions
Young people are to blame for bad examples of student voice They aren’t, the process needs to be managed better by teachers (in a clear and considered way)
Young people on interview panels select who gets the job Young people are having a say on who gets the job, from their perspective in the school.
Student voice is Government – imposed Student voice has not been imposed externally, but grown organically.
Better student voice equals worse teacher voice Schools that have effective student voice also have empowered, effective and vocal teachers

And here’s those misconceptions explained:

1. Poor examples of student voice mean that the whole idea of student voice is a bad one

‘the way many schools use student voice is “demeaning, embarrassing and humiliating” to teachers’

Chris Keates, General Secretary, NASUWT

NASUWT are right to be concerned about inappropriate practice with student voice. We’re concerned too, just like we’re concerned about anything that is inappropriate.

But those schools that have developed poor practice should be encouraged to approach student voice in a more considered and planned way, rather than not do it at all.

Just because student voice has had negative consequences in some schools, it doesn’t mean that the whole idea is a bad one.

2. Poor practice in student voice is widespread

NASUWT – the largest UK-wide teachers’ union – could only find around 200 examples of poor practice with student voice.

We’re in touch with thousands of schools across the country who benefit from involving young people in important school decisions. This is happening day in day out, and young people, schools and teachers are reaping the benefits. Better behaviour, more engagement with learning, improved school environment, the list goes on…

Interestingly, a number of involvers’ teacher friends even sent positive case studies to NASUWT when they contacted their members looking for bad examples. They received a stock reply saying ‘thank you for your case of the abuse of student voice’. We’d like to ask NASUWT – how many teachers replied citing positive examples of student voice? And what happened to them?

Even some of the so-called ‘poor’ case studies are really clutching at straws. Take a look at this example in the Daily Mail yesterday:

From http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1263769/Now-teachers-ordered-smile-pupils.html

The aggrieved candidate for this job pointed out that the interview was conducted ‘very formally’. She also mentions two very reasonable questions that were asked by the young panel – one about her subject, and one about disruption.

This is hardly an example of poor practice, if the young panel were interested in that subject being taught well, and without any interruptions from badly behaved members of the class. How can we object to that? And did the candidate feel aggrieved because she didn’t get the job?

3. Young people are to blame for bad examples of student voice

Young people are not evil!

If they say something inappropriate in a lesson observation, that’s because that lesson observation hasn’t been planned properly. If they ask something inappropriate in a teacher interview, that’s because nobody has gone through the questions with them beforehand.

If they give inappropriate feedback in an interview, that’s because they’ve not been trained on how to construct feedback in a diplomatic way. Just like for adults.

Hardly rocket science!

4. That young people on interview panels select who gets the job

Young people are not the ones deciding who gets the job. They are having a say on it, and offering an opinion from a different perspective. The school staff and Governors of the school still have the final say, are still legally responsible, and are influenced by young people’s views  to an extent that they choose.

The decision making process needs to be made clear to the candidate (which has given rise to some of the problems we’ve seen highlighted in the press).

Student voice, when used in this way, takes advantage of the educational opportunity that being on an interview panel presents. It links well with work-related learning, and careers advice – why not use that opportunity?

5. Student voice is Government – imposed

‘a Government scheme called Student voice’
Melanie Phillips, Daily Mail

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-1263612/MELANIE-PHILLIPS-How-richly-ironic-teachers-ludicrous-obsession-pupil-power-putting-work.html

Student voice has not been forced on schools by this, or any, Government.

Student voice has come from schools because they know it’s a good idea. It has taken root in schools because many teachers realise the need to prepare their students for adult life in more sophisticated ways. It has not been imposed externally, but grown organically.

Schools that see the benefits of involving young people in their education every single day, with the appropriate support. It’s also supported with a range of academic research – here’s a few links:

Geoff Whitty’s research: http://www.dcsf.gov.uk/research/data/uploadfiles/DCSF-RR001.pdf

Carnegie YP research: http://cypi.carnegieuktrust.org.uk/cypi/publications

GTCE research: http://www.gtce.org.uk/documents/publicationpdfs/pupil_part_anthology1109.pdf

The Labour government has supported to schools, as part of the Children’s Plan, with this – but encourages them to do so in a way that works for them.

It’s also far more than just teacher appointments, and lesson observations – but young people being involved in most aspects of the work of the school!

6. Better student voice equals worse teacher voice

‘Student Voice scheme is not being abused. It is itself an abuse of education by drastically confusing the respective roles of teacher and pupil. This grotesque approach has not descended out of a clear blue sky. More profoundly and devastatingly, for several decades the entire education establishment has gone along with the benighted belief that pupils should usurp the authority of teachers in the classroom itself’ Melanie Phillips, Daily Mail

Wow. Go Melanie.

Both teachers and young people want to go to/work in a stimulating and effective institution. Student voice helps those two groups to work together to do just that.

Schools that have effective student voice also have empowered, effective and vocal teachers. The two are not mutually exclusive. Student voice is not about ‘pupil power’, but about a school’s ethos and culture, and young people benefit when they are part of it.

________

We’ll be writing to the NASUWT to suggest a more measured approach this week.

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Creating a communication plan for whole-school involvement

Thinking about communication, it's not just assemblies and noticeboards.
Thinking about communication, it's not just assemblies and noticeboards.

The Albion High School in Salford (Manchester) had a problem with its school council, as in many schools it was seen as ineffective and so became very unpopular with students.  Staff and governors set improving pupil voice as a key priority for the school. With help from Creative Partnerships they have rebranded and reconstituted the school council, which is now known as REGENERATE.  It has a significant budget (£30,000) and members of the Senior Leadership Team (SLT) provide direct support.

Having trained a number of Salford school council co-ordinators the other week I was invited to help run REGENERATE’s training yesterday – I was even billed as “Asher Jacobsberg: National Leader on Student Voice and Involvement” which was a bit of an ego massage! The day was opened by the Chair of Governors and the Headteacher, which I feel was really important for them and the students, really creating a link between the key decision-making bodies in the school. My role for the day, as well as running ice-breakers and rounding the day off, was to help the students decide on a strategy for getting the whole-school involved with REGENERATE. For me this always comes down to communication. The best way to start to pique people’s interest is to tell them about what you’re already doing, and encourage them to tell you what they think. Once that’s working, then they’re much more likely to want to move in to taking an active role.

As well as training, the day was used for making some structural decisions and voting in the Chair.
As well as training, the day was used for making some structural decisions and voting in the Chair.

So this is the session I ran with them, and we came up with a really solid communication plan at the end of it. Very importantly each element had someone who would be responsible for it, and a regular date on which it would happen.  Some of the ideas that the students came up with and will be taking forward:

  • Visit primary schools to tell them about REGENERATE, show they will be listened to at The Albion and find out what they want The Albion to be like when they get there.
  • Use social networking sites to spread the word about what REGENERATE is up to.
  • Create a REGENERATE jingle for the radio show that they will be recording.
  • Make sure that the REGENERATE noticeboards are updated after every meeting, that they are in places where everyone in the school will see them and that they are funny and interesting to look at!

Download the session plan as a Word 2007 .docx file (192 KB)

Download the session plan as a Word 2003 .doc file (225 KB)

To download as a PDF use the link in the Scribd window below.

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A short toolkit for school council co-ordinators

I created this short toolkit for the Salford School Council Co-ordinators Network.  As with everything we’re doing at involver when we create something we want to give it away for schools to use, play around with and share (that’s why we release everything under a Creative Commons licence). So have a look at this, I think there’s some really useful stuff in there, but it’s not supposed to cover everything, so if there are things you’d like us to add, just drop us an email and we’ll keep expanding it.  This is what’s in there now:

  • Ice breakers (4 school council-related games)
  • Boundaries and possibilities (2 different types of activity to explore what these might be)
  • School Councils are the end, not the beginning (presentation – hopefully it makes sense)
  • (Updated – April 2010) Planning elections
  • Key lines of communication (a worksheet for planning communication)
  • School policy on pupil participation (an essential document for any school that’s serious about pupil well-being – this is a guide to creating one)
  • School council constitution (you can’t really have pupil representation without one – although many try – some scenarios to set you on your way)
  • Tips for great meetings (guides to help you through preparing for a successful meeting, the meeting itself and ground rules to avoid pitfalls)

All three of these downloads have exactly the same stuff in:

[download id=”2″] 2.4MB
You can’t really edit it, but it will look just right with our nice fonts and things.

[download id=”93″] 1.3MB
Best if you might want to edit things and have a newer version of Word:

[download id=”92″] 2.9MB
Use this if you want to edit the file and can’t open newer Word files:

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Is your school council counter-cultural?

The revolutionary school council? (They're supposed to be wearing berets :-))
The revolutionary school council? (They're supposed to be wearing berets :-))

Culture is a great thing, it gives us a sense of identity, place and often purpose too, but it doesn’t do much for progress. In many ways culture is the embedding of a certain way of doing things through unquestioning repetition.

All major changes in industry, science, religion, society and thought have come from people or ideas that went against the prevailing culture. For the purposes of this blog, I’m going to call this counter-culture; it sets out with one maxim:

  • We do not accept a view simply because it is stated by someone in a position of authority; it has to be proved to be of value to us.

Counter-culture is absolutely necessary for any society (or institution) that wants to learn and improve. Having assumptions challenged means the good ideas grow stronger and the poor ones are done away with. It recognises the need for constant re-evaluation (which is very different from constant change).

It seems to me that this is what should be at the heart of all education: working out from first principles what is valid, not basing our ideas on assumptions. So to what extent are our educational institutions counter-cultural? How do they inculcate this approach? I would argue that in most cases they don’t, they in fact do exactly the opposite.

In almost every school in the country there is a school/pupil/student council (or it may go by some other name on a similar theme). The aim of each of these is ‘to improve the school’, but how many really have the tools to do it? Most are given a narrow set of responsibilities and very limited scope in which to carry them out.  Will this ever excite, represent or challenge most of the students or staff? If not, why are we doing them in school?

A number of questions I have been asked or that I have had to ask myself over the last couple of weeks have really brought this into focus for me:

  • From secondary school pupils:
    • Should staff set the agenda for our school council meetings?
    • Should we (the school council) be allowed to talk about and make statements on whatever is important to pupils?
    • Should staff play a role in selecting school council members?
  • From other researchers/practitioners in the field:
    • Are school councils merely there to deal with issues as they arise or should they create policy to pre-empt issues?
    • Does the headteacher lead the pupils in a school or does s/he just manage the staff?
    • Is it better to have a ‘learning council’ than a ‘pupil council’? (The suggesting being it puts learning at the heart of what it does, but I ask, ‘why demote pupils from being at the heart of what it does?’)
  • From discussions with an ex-school student leader from Greece:
    • What can a school council do if it’s not listened to? (In Greece they go on strike or occupy the school)

When staff allow students space to challenge they are forced into a real debate and both ‘sides’ have to question their own assumptions. Where schools just get students to help them with the things staff want to do there will be positive change, but it will be limited, never revolutionary.

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Slovakian adventure!

I’m back in London, via Vienna, after an amazing time in Kosice, Slovakia. It was a very inspiring and interesting three days.

slovakian flag

Great to hear about the challenges, successes and stories of people in other countries who are broadly trying to do the same things as us in the UK. Great to meet so many motivated, passionate young people. Great to visit Slovakia for the first time – it is a beautiful country!

After the first day of the meeting, with a visit to the school (See pic) , the rest of the trip focused on evaluating the ‘It’s your choice, use your voice’ project.

school

It was down to business in the amazing venue in Kyask – a beautiful old Soviet recreation centre for young people, set in the hills outside Kosice. A perfect place to work and think! The project had linked and compared school councils and youth democracy across Slovakia and Italy. It included training, conferences, seminars, youth exchanges, and supporting school councils to link with each other, and with regional councils.

A number of common obstacles were identified:

  • problems with elections
  • lack of youth motivation
  • lack of joined up thinking from local government
  • adults who are too willing to lead instead of facilitate

It was useful to provide my point of view on these obstacles as we went along, making clear how familiar they are to us, and discussing how best to overcome them.

Their main idea is to present the evaluation of the project in a way that will convince other young people to get involved. To pass on their learning to others, to help motivate young people – to make them ‘involvers’ I guess. Together, everyone put together a clear plan on the publication to convince other young people, which I’m sure will be a success – using some very eye-catching design. It will be translated into English, Slovakian and Italian, so I hope we can put it up on the involver site when it is done.

Italian group presenting their ideas
Italian group presenting their ideas

There were also lots of ideas for further cooperation that we hope to get involved with. I gave information on what Asher and I are up to with involver, and signposted resources and ideas which could help everyone in the future.

I think I’ll be going back in November – hopefully with Asher this time – to do some training, which is very exciting. The Kosice region is setting up their first regional school council.

Democratic youth voice on this scale has never happened before, so it’s amazing to be involved. There is also a possibility of some training in Turin to help with their regional school council in February next year – we would love to be involved in this too.

Both opportunities are very exciting – especially because it would give
me the chance to catch up with my new friends. Sooooo cheesy (sorry).

So thank you Michal and Erika for inviting me to take part, and thank you to all the young people who took part (especially for the Slovakian ‘mineral water’/ and the (many) Italian songs from Napoli). A great experience.

Over the course of the three days, I took short videos of some of the young people present asking them why student voice and school councils are important to them. I’ll put up a new one every day for the next week or so. Thank you to those who took part in this – your English is great! Here is Veronica from Slovakia telling us about her role in her school in Kosice: