Tag: Staff

Categories
involver blog

3 tips to get staff on side with your school council

Last week I got an email from a teacher at a school I’d run training at recently (which shall remain nameless). We’d had a great day, the school council had come up with a real range of projects and great ways to communicate with the rest of the school. Unfortunately the email was not to tell me how well the students were getting on, but about the negative reactions from school staff. When minutes from the meeting were sent our staff comments ranged from sarcastic to deeply concerned. The posters the school council had put up explaining what they were working on were even taken down.

The school council co-ordinator asked me for advice. I’m sure she’s not the only one facing these problems, so I thought I would share what I told her with you. There isn’t a quick fix of course, but here are three things I suggest:

1. Explain the role of the school council

Make it clear to staff that the minutes are not what is going to happen, but what the students are taking on. In many cases they share the concerns of the staff and want to work with them to sort them out, that’s why their first step is often to meet with the relevant staff member. It’s not for staff members to give a straight ‘yes’ or ‘no’, but to ask the students what the students will do to make this happen. For example, if students want more trips they should be told they need to organise them. They will need help with this and they won’t have access to the money, but it’s not for the staff member to do all the running, the whole point is getting students to make happen those things they are keen on. Students need to be clear in their own minds and especially in anything they commit to paper on the difference between what they are DOING and what they are ASKING FOR. What they are DOING will happen (with their effort) what they are ASKING FOR may not.

2. Minutes detail students’ plans of action

Recycling plan notes
Project planning notes made by pupils at a recent primary training day.

Ensure that what goes into the minutes is what actions the students will take. This way staff (and others) can see that these are issues of concern to students and that they are doing something about it. It helps where the minutes say more than ‘Meet with Ms X’, but also record what students are intending on suggesting, i.e. how they will help. The ‘school council ideas form‘ should help with this – the last section asks what the person filling it out will do to help – make sure no ideas come to the meeting without something here. Ensure those actions are clearly recorded in the minutes.

3. Attach prep work to the minutes

Something else to consider is the detail of the minutes. If either of the staff members mentioned above had seen the whole discussion they would know that the issues they raised were discussed. I suggest these very brief minutes as I think in general most people don’t read long minutes and it’s difficult for the secretary to take part if they are trying to record everything. However they don’t cover the detail of the discussion. Maybe if the ideas forms or project plans were attached to the minutes it would help those not at the meeting to see the thought that had gone into it without increasing the burden on the secretary.

Do you think these ideas might help in your school? Have you done anything else that has worked?

Categories
involver blog

Involving pupils in headteacher recruitment

When Asher’s school was choosing a new headteacher it was essential to involve pupils in the process.

It should be redundant to say that pupils are central to everything we do in school and yet we often make some of the most important decisions without listening to them at all. When we were choosing our new headteacher it seemed essential to us that we should involve pupils in that process. We needed a headteacher who could communicate with children as well as with adults and was respected by the pupils as much as by parents and colleagues. We were very keen therefore to ensure that people from all parts of our school community were involved; so on the appointment panel we had parent, community, LA and staff governors. One voice was obviously still missing though, that of the pupils. It would not have been appropriate to have pupils on the panel making the final decision, but we wanted them to play a meaningful part in the process. I volunteered to work with the school council to prepare them and to be their link to the appointment panel.

Pupils from Welbourne
Pupils from Welbourne helping in our office.
At the time the NASUWT was making a lot of fuss about pupil involvement in appointments and other pupil voice issues. It seemed to me that the cases they referred to just showed bad practice in appointment processes, they did not undermine the need for pupils’ voices to be heard in that process. I was keen to show that with appropriate preparation this would be a useful, interesting and educational experience for the pupils and the appointment panel.

At all stages the appointment panel was clear with candidates, the governing body and pupils about what the process would be and ultimately who would make the decision: that responsibility lay firmly with the appointment panel.  Each of the candidates would give an assembly, meet with the school council and have a formal interview. What weight was given to these elements was decided by the appointment panel.

A couple of weeks before the interviews I met with the older members of the school council (from Y3 to Y6) and our headteacher. We did some work on the role of the headteacher, confidentiality, the pupils’ priorities for a new head and what questions they could ask to find if someone fit the bill.

The questions they came up with were brilliantly incisive and varied, ranging from, “what would someone have to do to get sent home” to, “what does bravery mean to you”. They practiced these questions on the headteacher and we discussed his answers.

On the day of the interviews each pupil had a sheet on which were the nine questions they had come up with to ask each candidate and a space to mark each answer and make comments. They also had all the attributes we had discussed (not just those voted top) written around their sheets for them to circle if they thought a candidate showed one of them.

The school council met each candidate individually, asked all of them the same questions and gave the candidates time to ask them questions too. After each one I collated the school council’s marks and got each school councillor to give some feedback on what they thought about the candidate, giving reasons. I noted these down to hand to the appointment panel later.

At the end of the day I reported back the data and views from the school council to the appointment panel. Having this all written down I hope helped me to do this faithfully and without favour. As I wasn’t on the appointment panel I don’t know what influence these views had on them, but they definitely surprised and impressed me and challenged some of my perceptions.

It also made a clear statement to the candidates that the governing body put pupils at the heart of our school and so helped us to recruit a fantastic headteacher who does too.

Further info

A good process for pupil involvement in staff appointments:
http://involver.org.uk/2010/04/pupil-interview-panels-getting-it-right/

Questions pupils ask during staff appointments:
http://involver.org.uk/2011/08/school-council-interview-questions/

Asher is vice-chair of governors at Welbourne Primary School in Haringey and a member of the Haringey Governors Association. This article was originally published in the March/April 2013 edition of Governing Matters (Access to NGA Members only).

Categories
involver blog

A personal explanation of a Czech school council

Our installment today comes from Dobronin village school. It is yet another great school council experience for us with a school council that is clearly working very well. I think the influence of CEDU and the process they have been through with the schools is evident. They have taken all of these schools on residentials and worked with them on problem-solving, negotation and teamwork and it really shows. I would love involver to be able to run something similar for schools in the UK.

Rather than me explaining Dobronin school council to you, this time we have this poster made by last year’s school council so they can do it in their own words.

You can read more about their School Parliament on their website, including a list of their achievements and photos from their residential event.

After the meeting the teachers from the other schools commented on how little the teachers from Dobronin had said in the meeting and how they had put their hands up to speak and waited to be asked like the students. The teachers from Dobronin felt this was very important as it stopped the students always looking to them for answers. We then had a very interesting discussion on how careful teachers have to be to not unduly influence the opinion of the school council. A school council coordinator pointed out that this can be an even bigger problem in class meetings. So how do you ensure that the teacher does not sway the opinions being aired?

Categories
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.

Categories
involver blog News

Free school council networking in London

Very often there’s just one member of staff in each school with responsibility for student voice and the school council (ideally it should be part of everyone’s role) so it can feel like you’re a bit unsupported. We’d like to set up some regular free events around London to get school council co-ordinators together to share ideas, resources (and tales of woe).

It’ll be something informal, Teachmeet-style, where we’d like to hear from anyone who is doing anything interesting in their school, or who is facing a particular challenge. We’ll be on hand to offer a school council surgery and we’ll see how it develops.

If you think you might be interested, fill out the form below:

Categories
involver blog

School council interview questions

Feet of a student and a teacher in an interview
Photo by http://www.sxc.hu/profile/maiapedro

If you’re a teacher who’s about to be interviewed for a new job by a school council or other group of students it can be daunting to prepare for. Below is a list of questions that school councils we’ve worked with have asked and some general advice.

Questions the school council might ask you

  • What activities should we have in our school and why?
  • How would you make our school better?
  • What would you do if there was a pupil who is angry with his/her friend?
  • How do you help children have fun?
  • What would someone have to do to get sent home?
  • What does bravery mean to you?
  • Why do you like teaching?
  • What did you enjoy most when you were at school?
  • What’s the best lesson you ever taught?
  • If you weren’t a teacher, what would you be doing?
  • Who do you most admire?
  • How would describe your teaching style?
  • What’s your favourite subject (other than the one you teach)?
  • What do you think about homework?

What the school council might be looking for

A teacher who:

  • Is fair (particularly in terms of being even-handed)
  • Runs a classroom in such a way that everyone can learn
  • Is enthusiastic about her/his subject/teaching
  • Likes young people
  • Will challenge them
  • Will challenge bullying
  • Has a sense of humour
  • Is a problem-solver
  • Is an expert
  • Is a professional
  • Is caring
  • Is ‘strict in a polite way’ (i.e. doesn’t scream and shout to create discipline)
  • Is fun (i.e. likes to have fun and help others have fun)
  • Can make learning fun
  • Acts the same with pupils and teachers

General advice for interviews with a school council

  • Talk to the students – If there’s an adult in the room (there should be) remember that she/he is just there to support the students, your interview is with the students, so direct your answers to them.
  • Ask them questions – ‘Does that happen in your school?’; ‘What do you think needs changing?’. This shows that you would listen to them if you came to the school. It’s also a great way for you to find out more about the school. You can even use their answers in your interview with the adult interview panel: ‘When I was talking to your school council, they said that …, which I would try to address by …’
  • Use concrete examples – ‘In my current school …’; ‘When I was at school …, so now I …’
  • Relax – Difficult in an interview, but you’re in front of young people all the time, right? The students might not be as understanding of your tension as adults, never having been in a job interview, but remember these students just offer a recommendation to the full interview panel, they don’t make the decision.
  • Be yourself – The school council will be frustrated if they think you’re trying to spin them a line. They want to respect you and get on with you: none of you will be able to tell if that can happen if you’re not being yourself. If you do get on with them then great, if not, maybe it’s not the school you want to be at anyway.
  • Be honest – This will be respected far more than you making something up on the spot.
  • Take time to think – Just as in any interview, they’re looking for a considered answer, not a quick one. As students they appreciate time to think about their answers: if you show that you understand that and sympathise, they’ll warm to you.

If you want advice on how to set up school council interviews, have a look here: Pupil interview panels – getting it right

What questions have you asked or been asked in interviews with a school council or other students? Do you have any tips for people facing a school council interview panel?

Add them in the comments and I’ll update the list above.

 

Find more great school council resources at the Smart School Councils Community.