Student Voice Developments

Barry Gransden

16th October 2012

RECENT CONTEXTS

Changing view of childhood

UN Convention on Rights of the Child 1989

School Improvement agenda

OfSTED Inspection framework

Citizenship and Healthy Schools initiative

Consumerism

Public Service reform

Children’s Commissioner

Work of Professors Jean Ruddick and Michael Fielding

YOUTH: TRACING CONCEPTUAL RENEWALJOANNA WYN 2009

Industrial

(modernity 1945 – 1975)

Youth as transitional period to adulthood

Adulthood – a point of arrival

Youth as future of society: both hope and threat

Youth as deficit (pupils, patients)

Youth as responsibility of the state (student)

Mainstream and at-risk

Post-Industrial

(late modernity 1976 -)

Blurring lines between youth and adult

Adulthood - state of reinvention and improvement

Youths as decision-makers + entrepreneurs in the present

Youth as partners (co-learners, self-managing

Youth as consumer (client, choice-maker)

Diversity

IMMEDIATE CONTEXTS

UK Government Legislation/Initiatives/Research

Every Child Matters

Personalised Learning

Specialist Schools and Academies Trust

NCSL

‘Real Decision Making? School Councils in Action’

‘Working Together: Giving children and young people a say’

Academic Research and publications

ESRC TLRP ‘Consulting Pupils about T&L’

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NEW PRESSURES …..BIRTH TO THREE MATTERS

Maps ‘Skill & Competence’ of babies and toddlers aged 0 – 3

4 themes,

16 dimensions,

64 components, with detailed guidance on Observing & recording Planning Responding to diversity Challenges

AND MORE RECENTLY ….. EYFS: The Birth to 5 Quality Framework

RANGE OF STUDENT VOICE ACTIVITIES (1)

Peer Support

Buddying Systems

Peer Tutoring/listening

Peer Teaching

Peer Mediator

Circle Time (same year/mixed age)

RANGE OF STUDENT VOICE ACTIVITIES (2)

Organisational reflection and renewal

‘School’/student councils

Student Teams e.g. Mulberry School for Girls, Tower Hamlets / Blue School, Wells / Ringwood School, Hampshire

Working party reps

Student Governors

Student Ambassadors

Tour Guides

Appointment Panels

Junior Leadership Team e.g. Greenford High School, Ealing

School Improvement Plans/ policy writing

RANGE OF STUDENT VOICE ACTIVITIES (3)

Teaching & Learning

AfL

Lead-learners

Students as Learning Partners

Students as co-researchers

Students as researchers

Student-led learning walks

Evaluating work units

Dept/Unit development plans

RANGE OF STUDENT VOICE ACTIVITIES (4)

Classroom Consultation

(with your own class)

Classroom observation

Video recording

Questionnaires, Interviews

‘Transforming learning’

Focus groups

Suggestion boxes

Diaries, Photos, Collage

Learning Review Meetings

FROM AUDIENCE TO AUTHOR, FROM DATA TO DIALOGUE (1)

HOW ADULTS LISTEN TO AND LEARN WITH STUDENTS IN SCHOOLS

Classroom Dept/Team School

Student as

Data Source

Individual performance data

Samples of student Student Attitude Surveys

Student as

Active Respondents

AfL Lead learners Team agenda + student perceptions

Students on staff appointment panels

Student as

Co-Researchers

Developing independent learning

‘History Dudettes’ (History Dept review team)

Joint review of rewards system

FROM AUDIENCE TO AUTHOR, FROM DATA TO DIALOGUE (2)

HOW ADULTS LISTEN TO AND LEARN WITH STUDENTS IN SCHOOLS

Classroom Dept/Team School

Student as

Knowledge Creators

What makes a good lesson?

Evaluate playground buddying system

Low level bullying

YP + Adult co-Authors

Joint Enquiry

Stantonbury Day 10 on e.g. poetry writing

Develop unit/dept research lesson

Staff + student Learning Walks

YP + Adults in search of the common good

Participatory Democracy

Y6 + museum staff + teacher co-plan visit for Y3

Classes as critical friends in thematic exploration

Whole School Forum

4) Assigned but informed

This is where young people are assigned a specific role and informed about how and why they are being involved. This rung of the ladder can be embodied by community youth boards.

 3) Tokenism

When young people appear to be given a voice, but in fact have little or no choice about what they do or how they participate. This rung of the ladder reflects adultism.

 2) Decoration

Happens when young people are used to help or "bolster" a cause in a relatively indirect way, although adults do not pretend that the cause is inspired by young people. This rung of the ladder reflects adultism.

 1) Manipulation

Happens where adults use young people to support causes and pretend that the causes are inspired by young people. This rung of the ladder reflects adultism.

 8) Young people-initiated, shared decisions with adults

This happens when projects or programs are initiated by young people and decision-making is shared between young people and adults. These projects empower young people while at the same time enabling them to access and learn from the life experience and expertise of adults. This rung of the ladder can be embodied by youth/adult partnerships.

 7) Young people-initiated and directed

This step is when young people initiate and direct a project or program. Adults are involved only in a supportive role. This rung of the ladder can be embodied by youth-led activism.

 6) Adult-initiated, shared decisions with young people

Occurs when projects or programs are initiated by adults but the decision-making is shared with the young people. This rung of the ladder can be embodied by participatory action research.

 5) Consulted and informed

Happens when young people give advice on projects or programs designed and run by adults. The young people are informed about how their input will be used and the outcomes of the decisions made by adults. This rung of the ladder can be embodied by youth advisory councils.  

About the Ladder

Sociologist Roger Hart wrote a book called Children's Participation: The Theory And Practice Of Involving Young Citizens In Community Development And Environmental Care for UNICEF in 1997.  This groundbreaking work put the work of young people and adult allies around the world in the context of a global movement for participation, offering needed guidance and criticism of many efforts. The "Ladder of Children's Participation," also called the "Ladder of Youth Participation," is one of many significant tools from the book.

 

The 7/8 Debate

Roger Hart's Ladder of Participation shows young people-initiated, shared decisions with adults as the top form of young people's participation, followed immediately by young people-initiated and directed. This is somewhat controversial an issue for many people working with and around young people. Essentially, the debate is which of these levels of participation is actually the most meaningful?

ONGOING PRACTICAL CHALLENGES (1)

Inclusion

Which students? Whose voices?

Race

Gender

Social class

Ability labelling

An unusual, elite activity?

Or

An inclusive commitment that involves all students in all aspects of their lives at school?

30% DECLINE IN SENSE OF BEING ‘LISTENED TO’ AROUND TEACHING + LEARNING BETWEEN Y3 + Y11

Despite 2004 Children Act and OfSTED’s 2005 framework, Antidote’s recent School Emotional Environment for Learning Survey (SEELS) of 23,000 students shows that, between Y3 and Y11, they experience a 30% decline in their sense of being listened to in T&L

‘Students say the structures + systems set up to collect their views involve too many people + have little chance of making meaningful changes to school life. The students taking part are often the most articulate, intelligent + well-behaved. The rest then feel there is little point in even being interested

Source Antidote e-News, November 2008

ONGOING PRACTICAL CHALLENGES (2)

Teacher tensions

Pressures of time + curriculum coverage

Lack of institutional support

Beyond pockets of isolated practice (role of local, national & international networks)

Consumerism or democratic agency? E.g. “you’re no good, no bullet points, too much thinking, not thick enough files”

Using students?

Refusing the role of ‘quality assurance donkeys’

‘Beating up’ teachers? E.g. excesses of covert observation

NEW DEVELOPMENTS IN STUDENT VOICE: SHAPING SCHOOLS FOR THE FUTURE PART FUNDED BY ESMEE FAIRBAIRN FOUNDATION

Radical Inclusion

Involving those whose voices are seldom heard

Reversing roles

Students as agents of adult professional learning

Co-constructing the common good

Remaking public spaces in schools where adults + young people can have an open dialogue