The first few weeks back at school after the summer break are a pretty crazy time, and loads of school councils launch right back into the bad practice that they’ve always done. To challenge this, here are ten simple ideas that you should try and which will help your school council be more successful, youth-led and self-managing!
Even a very small budget of £50 a year can really help pupils to act quickly, have the tools to raise more money, and feel trusted and important.
To get this, it might seem like a bit of a daunting thing to ask your headteacher for some money. But you can ask pupils to put together a pitch to do this, and tell them why it’s important. You can also appoint a treasurer who is trustworthy, reliable and responsible.
Make sure they know it’s their job to spend the money and account for it.
Lots of school councils don’t know what the projects that they can and can’t do are. This leads to confusion and frustration for everyone!
Use this school council boundaries exercise to work out exactly what is on and off limits to your school council.
Never rush straight into a school council election; candidates won’t know what they’re applying for, turnout will be low, and you will have missed a really good opportunity to raise the profile.
Take a step back and think about your school council model first. How well is it engaging everyone? There’s more on this below.
A very simple one this one:
Here’s some fantastic schools who have adopted our Smart School Council Model. You can read up on some fantastic school council case studies here.
You’ve all seen it; a dusty school council minutes noticeboard that hasn’t been changed since 2003. Sound familiar?
A better idea is to get your school council to build a school council progress board. This means you can keep track of each of the projects, the next steps, your successes and also the things you can’t do. Importantly, this can also help you communicate what you’re doing to the rest of the school.
Fancy doing this? Here’s the resource you’ll need to help you to build the school council progress board.
You can learn a lot from being involved in school council meetings, but often the only involve a very small group of pupils and sometimes aren’t very well run.
Schools on the Smart School Council programme have access to a class meeting tool that gives you a clear format for meetings. These also involve all pupils so everyone is developing skills. Find out more here.
What are you trying to do as a school council? Do you know? Does anyone know? Do other people in school know?
You should really have a policy to help everyone understand what your school council is doing.
Here’s a resource that schools on our Smart School Council programme use to create a School Council Policy. This model is a bit different to a normal school council, so you can read up about the Smart School Council model here.
What skills do you want pupils to learn by having a school council? You’re probably thinking of things like empowerment, confidence and leadership. Who do you want to learn these skills? Hopefully, it’s everyone!
How well does your current school council model teach everyone in your school these skills? Usually, there’s lots of work to do in this area. Check out our new Smart School Council model – this involves every pupil in your school, rather than a small group.
Turn your current school council into a Communication Team and get them to put on an engaging, fun and informative assembly. Standing up in front of everyone isn’t for everyone, so work to the groups strengths, but there’s other ways that everyone can get involved by contributing ideas, writing a script or doing a powerpoint. Tell the school that you’re there to listen and to help them!
Also, set up a school council surgery. This usually works by having two school council members who sit at a certain part of the school at a certain time to give information, take ideas or answer questions about the school council. For example, this could be every wednesday lunchtime outside the library. This can really help to connect the school council with the rest of the school.
There’s 350 schools who are adopting the Smart School Council Model. Many are involving the voice of 100% of their pupils and helping to meet Ofsted’s British Values. You can find out more here.
Hope those ideas help. Let us know how you get on in the comments below!
