What are you doing at your school?

There are no set rules on how to incorporate student voice in day-to-day school activities. A good starting point is to look at where students currently have input and identify other opportunities for them to provide opinions or information that can drive decision-making.

You don’t need to involve students in every decision made at the school in order to hear and honour student voice.

Checklist

You can use the questions below to guide your reflections about student voice.

• What does student voice look like at our school?
• When our students have ideas or want to have a say about something, how do they tell us?
• What would we like student voice to look like at our school?
• In which areas would we like to involve students?
• What would we need to set up at the school for this to happen?
• What does student voice look like to staff?
• How does our school handle a situation where it is not possible to do what students have requested?

Build a commitment ladder: professional learning and development activity

1. Print copies of the commitment ladder and the ladder template below
2. Talk through the explanations of each rung of the ladder – explain how each rung progressing up the ladder represents a greater level of commitment, starting with resistance to the idea on the lowest rung, through to a strong commitment at the top.
3. Explore different views of student participation and the ladder of commitment. Discuss where your school might be on the ladder.
4. Distribute copies of the ladder template. Ask staff to rate their level of support for student participation by marking the appropriate rung on the ladder that represents their views. The ratings are anonymous – there is no need for staff to name their template.
5. Tally the ratings to gage support for change – you might do this prior to a break.
6. Share the results with staff for further discussion. If the results are less than hoped, the facilitator can ask for feedback on how the idea can be improved to generate more commitment.