Speaker’s School Council Awards

Asher and I had a great day at Parliament last week.

It was the Speaker’s School Council Awards Ceremony, that we’ve helped Parliament out on for the second year running. It’s been a brilliant project for us to work on.

The five winning schools came from across the UK to get a tour of Parliament, a sharing session in one of the committee rooms, and the awards ceremony with the Speaker. The winning schools are:

Radyr Comprehensive School, Cardiff
Shuttleworth College, Burnley
Welling School, Kent
New Earswick Primary School, York
Rice Lane Infant and Nursery School, Liverpool

You can read more about them here.

Took a few terrible snaps (I’ll try to add some proper ones soon). Here’s Asher setting up in the Committee Room:

Here’s Asher having a go on the big chair:

Also lovely to see Millicent from ACT, Laura Hoke, Laura from Changemakers, and Andy from Citizenship Foundation there.

And here’s an exciting project that Parliament are working on. Worth a look.

Hello from involver – newsletter number 8

We hope all your chocolate eggs haven’t melted in the sunshine.

Resource: Setting targets and planning a project

These free downloads are something we created for Parliament’s Education Service (PES) to help schools prepare for entering the Speaker’s School Council Award. It’s the second in a series of four sessions to help school councils run projects. The download is in three parts, one at the bottom of this page and the next two on page two:
http://speakersschoolcouncil.org/resources

Video: MPs’ and school councillors’ tips on project planning

We’ve also made these six videos for PES to help schools think about why school councils are important and how to plan and run projects. There are loads of great tips and inspiration for any school council or action team. Watch them all here:
http://involver.org.uk/2011/04/project-planning-and-evaluation-videos-for-school-councils/

Competition: Winner of free half-day of training

Welcome to all our new subscribers who signed up over the last couple of months. The winner of the half-day training is Morgan from Warwickshire, congratulations to them and commiserations to everyone else. Here’s what you could have won:
http://involver.org.uk/school-council-training-and-student-voice-support/

Article: How running your school like a factory can make it more creative

A lot has been said about how schools are too much like factories to be effective, but one school we’ve come across recently is using the ideas of industrialist, W. Edwards Deming to make their school more responsive to student voice. Here are our thoughts:
http://involver.org.uk/2011/04/how-running-a-school-like-a-factory-can-improve-student-voice/

Research: Student voice good practice

We came across the school above as part of the mad rush around the country we’ve been on over the last month to complete research for the Office of the Children’s Commissioner (OCC) in to good practice in student voice. We’ve seen some exciting and inspiring stuff, and it’s all written up now. We’ll be sure to share it with you as soon as the OCC publish it. See more of the OCC’s work:
http://www.childrenscommissioner.gov.uk/

News: School council chair runs AV debate

Soon Britain will be deciding on whether it wants a new voting system. We think this is a great opportunity for schools to look at how democracy works in their school. This school council has taken up this challenge and is hosting a debate between two local MPs on the Alternative Vote (AV) vs First Past the Post (FPTP):
http://www.getwokingham.co.uk/news/s/2091605_av_debate_at_ranelagh_school
Resources on AV/FPTP to use in your school: http://www.ycsay.co.uk/freeresources.html

Resource: Pilot the Student voice-o-meter

We’ve created a new online tool to help students research student voice in their school, understand who it’s working for and who it’s not. We’re looking for a few schools to pilot it. Let us know if you’re interested by emailing info@involver.org.uk. Find out more here:
http://www.studentvoiceometer.org.uk

Campaign: Every1counts participatory budgeting in schools

We believe that if schools really value student voice they need to involve students in how the school spends its money, so we’ve teamed up with the Participatory Budgeting Unit and the Citizenship Foundation to support schools to involve the whole school in this process. We are currently seeking funding from the Paul Hamlyn Foundation to enable us to create training and resources. Find out more and sign-up to be considered for the pilot:
http://www.every1counts.org.uk

Hope you have fun over the extra long weekend!

Greg and Asher

P.S. Greg was very keen for us to put in an egg-related joke. I hope you’ll agree that I showed eggscelent taste in resisting the temptation to do so.

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