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Engaging Student Voice AX673
Engaging Student Voice:A model for the dynamic empowering of students in school
A reflective report of a Research Workshop held at theInstitute of Education, London University, in March 2009,funded by the Guerrand-Hermès Foundation for Peace.
The questions to be explored
A group of five school leaders from in and around London came together on 16March 2009 in a research workshop at the Institute of Education London. All fiveheads have all developed robust, effective and structured ways of amplifying thevoice of students so that their perspectives have been effectively incorporatedinto the direction these schools have taken.They came together:
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To find out what factors had supported their different initiatives
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What obstacles they had encountered and
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How those had been addressed.Their intention was to discover what principles they had developed, largelyintuitively, between them. If such principles did exist, could they be reproducedin a consistent form for use by others?The method was to explore their varied experience of issues about schoolleadership and the challenge of taking student voice and person-centrededucation more seriously. The workshop was facilitated by John Bazalgette fromThe Grubb Institute of Behavioural Studies and Michael Fielding from theInstitute of Education.
Resourcing
The research workshop was majorly funded by the Guerrand-Hermès Foundationfor Peace. Thanks are due to the Trustees for their generous support.
FINDINGSSupporting factors
It emerged that there were 12 common positions from which these schoolleaders personally worked and how they thought about what their students mightuse their school for. In each case they were backed in this by their leadershipteam. The key points are listed here with indicative comments (not verbatim)made in the discussion about what they all had in common
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They all had a
fundamental belief in the creativity of students and of their capacity to be responsible
in applying their creativity to the work of the school.
© The Grubb Institute July 2009
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Engaging Student Voice AX673
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Our students have been articulate and aware of their contemporaries as abody – We have been growing what was there already in abundance buthad never been harvested before – We are being led into looking atstudent voice as being about more than ‘hygiene’ factors – Our Year 8Researchers have stunned the staff with their wisdom and expertise.
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They
trusted students’ natural loyalty 
to teachers and to the school.
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We have found again and again that some of the most potentcontributions have come from those seen formerly as ‘problem’ pupils.Trusting them has released new insights and understanding for us all”
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They saw students as
co-creators
of the work of their school, rather thanpassive consumers of what others provide. The effect of this was to pushthe ‘envelope’ of the ‘pupil role’ into new dimensions.
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The students are the primary stakeholders of our school. Whatever theefforts of the staff, what the school is and does in the end depends uponthe children’s efforts.
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They had developed specific
structures
through which studentperspectives were brought to bear on the core processes of their school:evaluation of teaching and learning, behaviour and staff appointment.
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We have a Teaching and Learning Panel, Consultation Panels, Researchand Development Groups, and Interview Panels for staff appointments –We have a Task Force of Year 8, trained in social science research by amethod developed by the Open University, who investigate issues thatthe School Council identify as needing to be more fully understood.
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This involved
defining boundaries clearly 
especially in terms of task,territory and time; this was important in taking account of matters thatcould not be subject to student opinion because they related to statute andprofessional judgement.
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I am clear from the outset that there are certain things that will not bechanged: these include the National Curriculum, finance and other questions, which could include school uniform. There has never beenany problem about this – Defining boundaries clearly can guard againsttoken consultation, what passes for sounding student opinion but isactually doing a ‘selling’ job.
 
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All the school leaders showed
determination and tenacity inmaintaining firmness of purpose
in terms of the purpose of their school,holding to a wider and deeper understanding than is found in conventionalterms.
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The focus is on the curriculum, but not just the subject content; our students are interested in how pupils are treated – It is scary how much
© The Grubb Institute July 2009
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Engaging Student Voice AX673
they unearth; they are ruthlessly honest. We have to handle this withintegrity.
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They had a capacity to
develop new languages
with which to explain toall the school’s stakeholders the rationale for their leadership teams’purposeful decisions.
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Just as Emotional Intelligence has brought new language to us, we arehaving to develop a new language to work with the students. They areworking in ‘think-tanks’, ‘steering groups’ and so on.
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They provided models for the practice of 
listening to everyone
, leadingdialogues about the strategic and tactical decisions that were being takento all concerned – students, staff, governors and parents. 
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I walk the school and am available to talk to anyone, but they will only talkif they have confident that I am truly listening. - We have AssociateGovernors, who the rest of the Governing Body find invaluable.
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They are
working with evidence at all times and expected that of others;
this enabled everyone to test the validity of assumptions that laybehind decisions.
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If we ask the students to work with evidence we have to set an examplein every decision we take. Decisions based on untested assumptions willsoon be exposed – We have reviewed and tested the value of what weare doing. Not to have done so would have lacked integrity.
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Consistently they recognised the need for 
external advice and support 
in order to develop leverage which could bring about shifts in internalunderstanding.
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We have used a team of four retired, experienced senior teachers whoact as consultants to the student representatives. They have provedinvaluable in enabling the students to go further with their own thinking. –We used an external body to enable the SLT to equip us for thechallenges facing us once the School Council was really empowered bybeing backed by research reports.
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It was important to
locate ‘champions’ of student voice
amongststudents and staff; without these the voice of students could have beendrowned out and the process of succession through generations becomedifficult.
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We were fortunate in the first year that we strengthened the SchoolCouncil and extended its remit and that the Head Girl was unusuallygifted and made the initiative work. – We had a Head of Subject whoreally cared about student voice. He has made the approach work andwe have created a new role for him to take the thing further.
© The Grubb Institute July 2009
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