|
|
Tag: Stories
School council training for primary teachers: We're running a one-day CPD training looking at the best ways to overcome the obstacles that school council coordinators come up against.
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
The next in our series of case studies comes from Kirk Merrington Primary, a village school in County Durham.
Key quote
“If we weren’t listened to it just wouldn’t be right. It makes you feel really welcomed, because you’ve got your say.”
Year 5 pupil
Key benefits
Behaviour is not an issue in the school. This is a result of the incredibly positive relationships between staff and pupils and the understanding they share of rights and responsibilities.
By the time they leave the school all children are adept at expressing their opinions, talking to adults and relating to one another in a civilised, caring way.
Children show a clear affection for the school, the staff and all other pupils. The sense of ownership they feel is impressive.
Top advice
To express oneself compassionately and effectively one needs to learn to listen to and work with others. Group project work from a young age teaches the skills needed.
Staff need to see themselves as role models. Leading by example is essential. If you are trying to teach children respect, you need to show them that same respect.
Set your expectations higher. It is easy to underestimate how responsible young children can be and how intelligently they can contribute.
Pupil voice does not work unless everyone shares the value of listening. So, we need to educate around rights and responsibilities for pupil voice to work.
Methods used
Whilst Kirk Merrington has certain structures to listen to pupils, what is most important is the relationships between staff and pupils, which are open, friendly and mutually respectful. This is not to say that this is just a happy coincidence, the school has chosen to be this way:
Shared values
There is a very strong set of values which underpins everything the school does. Central to this is that the school has to act in a way that reflects the values it is trying to teach:
“We try to teach respect therefore young people are listened to.”
Headteacher
Initially these values grew from what the school wanted its children to learn. It was understood that for this to happen the school would have to be based on these values too and so all its interactions would need to be on this basis. Over time the school formalised this way of working first through the Investors in Pupils scheme and then the Rights Respecting Schools Award. The latter helped the school make clear the links between rights and responsibilities. Everything the school does now is framed within the language of rights and responsibilities. Whilst it cuts across many rights and responsibilities, pupil voice is clearly linked in the school to the right of everyone to be listened to and therefore the responsibility to listen to others.
“Rights Respecting Schools isn’t the be all and end all, but it’s easy to assume that you’re doing it [involving pupils] without something like this. The children will tell us what we want to hear, they are very loyal to us. These schemes help us to understand what’s going on, to audit it.”
Headteacher
‘Righty Duck’
In a primary school the concept of rights and responsibilities can be difficult to convey so the school has come up with a mascot to help. ‘Righty Duck’ can be seen all over the school and all pupils know that wherever they see him, there are rights and responsibilities at play. For example, the school council noticeboard has a picture of ‘Righty Duck’ next to notes explaining in simple language what the school council is for and which article of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (UNCRC) it relates to.
So, both those who can read the explanation and those who cannot understand that there is a link between the class charters, the work they do on sustainability, the school council and so on.
Staff modelling respectful communication
There are honest, open relationships between pupils, parents and staff. The school has an open door policy in its staff room and the headteacher’s office. This is part of the headteacher’s aim to ensure that all Kirk Merrington pupils will have the confidence and self-esteem to talk to any adult. It is absolutely understood that for pupils to learn how to relate positively to one another this behaviour needs to be modelled in the relationships staff have with them.
“Schools can run on auto-pilot; we don’t want to do that, we want to understand why we’re doing it and be purposeful about it.”
Headteacher
This means that, for example, when the school council asks for something the answer is never ‘no’, there is always an explanation and an ‘adult discussion’ about the reasons why. This is the starting point for attempting to find a solution, rather than the end of the matter.
This culture of problem-solving starts very early in the school and is seen as an essential building-block for positive communication and teamwork as the pupils get older.
Variety of opportunities for leadership and responsibility
In the classroom every child engages in project-based, team learning that helps them build skills of listening, collaboration and leadership. Everyone then has the opportunity to take on other roles of responsibility through which they can represent others or get their own voice heard. Although it is a very small school it makes available a variety of opportunities:
- School council
- Music council
- Pupil-run snack shop
- Play leaders (run games and sessions in the playground)
- Singing leaders (teach songs on the playground)
- Pupils elected to work with architects designing the new school
- Peer-mediators
About the school (adapted from Ofsted)
This smaller than average sized school, south of Durham, is attended by pupils from the immediate area and beyond. The small number of pupils in the school results in mixed key stage classes. The areas served by the school have below average indicators of socio-economic circumstances and all the pupils are of White British heritage with English as their first language. The proportion of pupils in receipt of free schools meals is below the average as is the proportion of pupils with learning difficulties and/or disabilities. The school holds several awards including Healthy Schools accreditation.
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
For the fourth in our series of school council case studies, it’s Beauchamp College, which is a Key Stage 4 and Post-16 college.
Key quote:
“College is a cultural mixing pot, so it’s impossible to say ‘this is what The Students want’, student voice enables teachers to be aware of the huge variety of wants and needs.”
Student governor
Key benefits:
The culture of ‘high respect’ goes hand in hand with ‘high discipline’. There are no bells or uniforms and also no detentions. Students are expected to be responsible, treated as though they can be and so they are.
Staff and students all buy in to and contribute to school improvement: “Staff are with student voice, the school is not for teachers to teach and students to listen; students help the school progress.”
Student-led clubs and societies give every student the opportunity to lead, whilst greatly broadening the range of extra-curricular activities for everyone. This requires minimal staff support.
Students are very clear of the skills they are learning through being representatives, leaders and active participants in their school. They link these directly to the roles they want to take on in later life, both in employment and in wider society.
Top advice:
- “Start small, let it grow and learn from other schools.” Student governor
- “It’s not necessarily the loudest or most confident students who have the best ideas. Student voice is every student’s view, not just the ‘leaders’ in the school. All roles should be important, it is not to do with how many ‘leaders’ there are.” Student governor
- “Communicate and be diverse. If you are the ‘same old, same old’ people, people will not be interested. Give it creativity and glamour. Find different ways to talk.” Student governor
- “Student voice is about being in the community, not just the school: connecting students and the school with what’s going on outside.” Student ambassador
- “Engrain things from a young age, so people know how to use their voice.” Student ambassador
- Beauchamp shows how it values student voice by creating professional-looking posters of all the representatives and teams and the things they’ve been doing. These are displayed all over the college.
Methods used:
Student governors
Rather than a school council the top-level student representation at Beauchamp is a group of four student governors from Year 13 (they are elected while they are in Year 12). This structure was suggested by a student five years ago and has been running since then. Student governors are elected by students from across the whole-school. Any student is able to stand; they realise it will be a significant commitment of time but that their potential to make an impact on the college is equally significant. Their role is to represent the views of all students to the college’s management and to co-ordinate and initiate many of the student-led projects.
The student governors meet with the vice-principal every Monday morning for an hour and a half to catch up with what each other are doing and what the school is working on. Any other student or member of staff can also attend these meetings to comment on issues being discussed or bring up new ones. Students can also get their views to the student governors through their Facebook page, suggestion box or by seeing them in their office. The student governors also attend all meetings of the full governing body – as associate governors – and are given voting rights when they turn 18. Having students as associate governors is a possibility open to all schools.
Student ambassador
The student ambassador is a new role at Beauchamp College. This is an appointed post, rather than elected. The student ambassador’s job is to create links between the student body and the local community. He has been working on representation at the local youth council as well as inter-generational schemes with the local elderly.
The student ambassador sees his role as giving a greater number of students the opportunity and encouragement to become involved in making a contribution to the school and wider community. He has set out to do this in a creative way to add to the avenues for student voice and leadership offered through student governors, INSTED, etc.
‘INSTED’
Like the student governors, INSTED was suggested by a student. It is an internal evaluation of teaching and learning led by a student team that has been running for four years. Places on the team are advertised annually and anyone can apply. Everyone who applies to take part can do so. They are trained by a member of staff who is also an ex-Ofsted inspector, who co-ordinates and supports the INSTED team.
The aims of INSTED are to:
- Celebrate the positive aspects of teaching and learning;
- Suggest areas for improvement and constructively help the college to move forward to be the best.
The INSTED team do this through lesson observations and discussions with staff and students; these follow a set format developed by the school. The results of these are compiled in to reports by a student co-ordinator. This is given to the teacher concerned and to the head of department.
The scheme is seen as a huge success with students being able to see the impact they are having in the classroom and teachers requesting INSTED observations as they see it as a way to push forward their own practice.
Students appointing staff
Students are heavily involved in all staff appointments at Beauchamp, including the appointment of the new principal. Where they have gone further than most schools is that they have completely managed the appointment of a member of staff. The job description and person specification of the Key Stage 5 manager, a pastoral role, was written by students; they advertised the post, managed the interviews and made the appointment. It was felt that as the role was primarily working for the students then the students should make the appointment. The process gave the students a real insight in to what goes into recruitment and the college is very happy with the appointment made.
In the recent process of appointing a new principal, students were present at all stages or the 2 week process, bar one interview.
Student-led clubs and societies
The college has a system whereby students can apply to set up and run clubs and societies, like in many university student unions. This not only greatly increases the number and range of extra-curricular activities the college can run, but provides a great number of leadership opportunities for students. The sense of ownership and responsibility this gives to students means that minimal staff support and supervision is needed.
These clubs and societies can come from any aspect of students’ lives, covering religious, sporting, cultural, philosophical and creative interests.
Student-led research
This offers all students the opportunity to become involved in research. Students are encouraged to choose an area which is of particular interest to them but is also in some way linked to the college’s corporate plan. All students who join the programme initially attend a seminar at a university campus in order for them to experience a taste of university life as well as learning the rudiments of carrying out a research project. Students can work individually or as a team and are allocated a mentor who supports and guides them throughout the process. There are currently over 40 students involved in the programme.
Students present their recommendations to the college leadership team once their data is collected and analysed. As students frequently tackle these projects from a different perspective to staff, their observations are of particular interest and regularly student proposals are both innovative and thought provoking.
About the school (adapted from Ofsted):
Beauchamp is a coeducational comprehensive 14-19yrs Upper School, with approximately 2150 students. It was formerly an old-established grammar school in Kibworth dating back 600 years. It is currently situated on the southern outskirts of Leicester city, in an area considered to be relatively affluent.
The Sixth Form is one of the country’s largest, with over one thousand of the college’s 2150 students enrolled. 58 per cent of all students are from ethnic minority backgrounds, including 39 per cent Indian, 6 per cent Asian and 13 per cent mixed, producing a rich and diverse centre of learning for students. 32 per cent of students have a first language other than English. The college has about one third of the national average proportion of students with learning difficulties and/ or disabilities. However the proportion of students with a statement of SEN is about average.
Beauchamp consistently achieves above the national average GCSE and A Level results and ‘outstanding’ Sixth Form Ofsted reports. Amongst its other achievements Beauchamp is an International School, with Leading Edge and Training School status. The college gained technology specialist status in 1996 and gained a second specialism in vocational education in 2006.
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
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:
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.
http://twitter.com/doingdemocracy
http://facebook.com/involver.org.uk