BEYOND STUDENT VOICE

TO DEMOCRATIC COMMUNITY

Michael Fielding

An exploratory paper

focussing on

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

presented at the day conference

New Developments in Student Voice:

Shaping schools for the future

Thursday 12 June 2008

BirkbeckCollege, University of London

11.00 - 15.00

Supported by a grant from the Esmée Fairbairn Foundation

We warmly invite and welcome your response

Professor Michael Fielding
Educational Foundations & Policy Studies
Institute of Education, University of London,
20 Bedford Way
London WC1H 0AL /
Tel: 0207.612.6919
Mob: 07952.267.050
Website :

Acknowledgements

My thanks to the Esmée Fairbairn Foundation for financial assistance supporting this work.

My thanks to Gill Mullis, Student Voice Co-ordinator at the Specialist Schools & Academies Trust, for her support and for putting me in touch with some of the outstanding examples of innovative work mentioned in this paper.

My thanks, too to the teachers and headteachersand Local Authority colleagues who responded so swiftly and so helpfully to my phone calls and emails, in particular, Ceddy de la Croix (Sandringham School), Leora Cruddas (London Borough of Waltham Forest), Elizabeth Draper (formerly of Haywards Heath Sixth Form College), Alison Peacock (the Wroxham School), and Cassie Shorey (Harding House).

My further thanks to Graham Hanscombe, Principal Advisor, Best Practice & Research, Essex Standards & Improvement ServiceandtoDr Jane McGregorfor many hours of dialogue over a number of years from which this paper and this project emerged.

Lastly, my thanks to Fiona Carnie, Visiting Research Fellow at the London Institute, who works with me on the Esmée Fairbairn Foundation project: her patience and encouragement are beyond measure.

Introduction

This conference paper addresses three issues which provide new and exciting challenges for all those working in ways which further develop a democratic way of life in the field that has come to be known as Student Voice. These issues concern

1 Radical inclusion- involving those whose voices are seldom heard

2 Reversing roles - students as agents of adult professional learning

3 Co-constructing the common good - remaking public spaces in schools

where adults + young people can have an open dialogue

The intention of the paper and of the 12th June conference is to explore these matters together and to invite further exchanges of view.

The next phase of our work will involve volunteer schools working with our colleague, Perpetua Kirby, in follow-up conversations, visits and the write up of case studies during the Winter Term 2008 and Spring Term 2009.

These conversations and case studies will then form the basis of a practical resource which we hope will be helpful for schools wishing to develop work in these three domains.

1 Radical inclusion

involving those whose voices are seldom heard

1.1Current contexts, imaginative responses

It is a measure of the coming of age of this phase of what has come to be known as Student Voice that we have gone far beyond the singularity of student ‘voice’ and are beginning to confront some of the hard and serious issues. These not only challenge those of us working in this field, but also challenge all those in our society committed to a more just and more joyful future. Thus, issues of class, race, gender and learning difficulty are now beginning to be taken more seriously and it is aspects of these challenges that this first section of our Esmée Fairbairn Foundation work seeks to understand better and to respond to more wisely.

In Rehearsing for reality – young women’s ‘space to deal with ourselves’we look at some of the work of Leora Cruddas and colleagues from the London Borough of Newham who supported marginalised young women – girls with EBD – in a range of highly inclusive ways which seem to us to have a wide-ranging resonance across many different contexts and circumstances.

The Teenage Parents Program (TAPP)that Deidre Kelley explores in her work shares some common ground with the Newham project and provides additional insights into the importance, not just of offering safe spaces for marginalised or stigmatised persons in our schools, but also countering and challenging, individually and collectively, dominant presumptions and prejudices.

The last two examples in this section of the paper look, firstly, at some of the ways in which students with Special Needs can not only contribute in groundbreaking ways to mainstream school practices, but also develop highly imaginative, holistic forms of engagement that many outside special schools would wish to emulate.COPS, creativity and the absolute necessity of inclusion gives a brief account of ways in which a major, five year, cross-city student voice initiative in Portsmouth was transformed by the active participation in mainstream contexts of Special Schools students.

The highly innovative work going on at HardingHouseSpecialSchool

not only gives us a feel for what a passionate level of commitment and tenacity can achieve. Student autonomy at Harding House School also reminds us of the importance of developing and co-developing practices which acknowledge difficulty, confront it collectively, and in so doing elicit an energy and joy of response that moves the work forward in ways that could not have been anticipated at its inception.

1.2Boundary practices: opening up new territory

Rehearsing for reality – young women’s ‘space to deal with ourselves’

Leora Cruddas’s work with the London Borough of Newham’s two year action research project focussing on the needs of girls with emotional and behavioural difficulties provides a number of imaginative and successful examples of ways in which a group of marginalised students in an already marginalised sub-community can be better understood and supported within a mainstream context. In phase one of the two year project, members of staff were seconded from the LA and developmental work took place in five secondary schools: three single-sex girls’ schools and two co-educational schools. In the second year part of the funding was delegated to schools who appointed a link member of staff who was released to work with the young women.

A range of different groups were formed in project schools. These included peer mentoring groups, conflict management groups, focused group work around a particular topic or theme, groups workshops, Circle Time groups, and outdoor activity-based and problem solving groups. However, one of the most successful strategies involved the use of ‘developmental group work’ which provided a vehicle for reflection, evaluation, action and change and helped to make clear what the young women felt they needed in order to learn and how they wanted their schools to change in order to meet those needs. The intention was to create a space that liberates, one which, in the words of Augusto Boal whose work inspired Leora and her colleagues, ‘a reflection on reality and a rehearsal for future action.’ Although similar to Circle Time, which has its origins in developmental group work, the latter is much less directive and teacher-led.

Not only did the project help to support the young women involved to name and deal with some of the key barriers to learning and participation in school like

  • emotional problems e.g. isolation and lack of self-confidence
  • relationship problems e.g. friendships, parents, romantic relationships, death and loss
  • academic issues e.g. transitions, lack of oracy opportunities, pressures to succeed
  • health issues e.g. pregnancy, mental health, body image
  • stereotyping e.g. sexuality, being used as agents of social control, domestic responsibilities, reputations.

It also highlighted a number of recommendations for institutional development and change. These were that these young women felt they needed to

  • be listened to
  • be heard above the boys
  • be treated as equals
  • have emotional space
  • have friends
  • share problems with each other
  • be supported by better pastoral systems

Essentially, in Leora Cruddas’s words, what was being asked for was, ‘the need for a voice and for space (in curricular, material and psychological senses) to explore social and emotional issues – what one young woman referred to as “space to deal with ourselves”’. In some instances the project led, not only to the development of a range of groups and practices, some of which, like workshops on understanding the needs of girls, targeted staff as well as students. It also led to the establishment of things like ‘Girlspace’, a classroom space within a mixed sex school where girls could go at lunchtime.

Teenage Parents Program (TAPP)

Deirdre Kelley’s account of the Teenage Parents Program (TAPP) in a Canadian high school approaches issues of inclusion primarily through a concern to understand how a diverse, constantly changing society might further develop practices that not only enable marginalised groups to develop confidence in their identities, but also to enable them to take part in and contribute to a participatory democracy. Support for minority groups inside and outside schools is, thus, not about creating separate enclaves, but rather about creating confidence, capacity and desire to engage in wider dialogue, discussion and action with peers and adults.

TAPP participants were young women and mothers, mostly living in poverty, many labelled as having learning and emotional disabilities, some of color or immigrants or both, who lacked proficiency in English. All had been stigmatised as teen mothers. TAPP provided on-site day care, a full time teacher who acted as an inclusion facilitator, and a full-time support worker. The programme itself included workshops dealing with a range of pertinent issues.

What is particularly interesting about TAPP is that it did not just provide a safe place for withdrawal and support. It also sought to equip the young mothers with the power to (a) deal with e.g. stigmatisation or derogatory comments and also (b) challenge the prejudices and presumptions they experienced, as often from public welfare organisations as from fellow students. Furthermore, on occasions it provided a radical space within which to explore alternative views of citizenship, including those that saw empowerment, not just as an individual aspiration but as a collective strategy focussing on the need for social change.

COPS, creativity and the absolute necessity of inclusion

In their five year partnership with the City of Portsmouth the University of Sussex co-developed a significant strand of work round student voice as a key strategy for educational renewal. The explicitly stated values of the Sussex team and the inclusive perspectives and inclinations of many of the Portsmouth staff with whom they worked laid the basis of some of their more successful work.

Early on in development of the Portsmouth Learning Community (PLC) work a cross-city Student Voice Day was held at one of the city’s Special Schools. Their hosting of the event, together with their full participation in it reinforced and deepened understandings and aspirations, not just of the SussexUniversity team, but of all students and staff who attended. Those felt encounters and bonds that grew out of that early event subsequently had an enormous effect on the way things developed over the four years’ work that followed. Not only were all subsequent cross-city Student Voice Days co-planned and eventually co-led by a group of students that included young people from Special Schools, some of the most innovative and adventurous PLC work owed its dynamism, creative insight and tenacity to the significant involvement of Special School students.

Two points of particular importance emerge from the inclusive commitment of these developments. Firstly, the active involvement of special school students and staff (one of the key citizenship ASTs in the city and was deputy head of a special school) helped the work to develop a person-centred, social justice orientation that is unlikely to have been so pronounced or so persistent had they not been involved. Secondly, because of special school involvement the Sussex University and Portsmouth LA student voice team were forced to confront difficult issues and through doing so develop responses that were wiser, more effective, more inclusive and, on occasions, much more creative that they would otherwise have been.

Perhaps one of the most compelling examples concerns the developing work of what became known as COPS (Council of Portsmouth Students). This is a city-wide group of students whose remit is to encourage a range of student voice activity in all schools, link with student councils, and offer a young person’s perspective on matters of importance to students themselves and to officers, councillors and community groups. Inevitably one of the issues with which COPS wrestled was how they developed effective forms of two-way communication between themselves and students across the city. With regard to how they let schools know what they were about and how they were getting on their realisation of the inadequacy of sending schools minutes of COPS meetings was immediately made clear by the deputy chair. This young man was from a SpecialSchool and he quickly pointed out that many of his peers would not be able to read the minutes and discuss the key issues, even if they were inclined to do so. This led to a wide-ranging discussion about issues of student-friendly communication and the importance of developing an inclusive approach that used modern technology and contemporary culture in imaginative ways.

The upshot was remarkable. With the enthusiastic help of a member of the SussexUniversity team, the COPS group developed an audio-visual form of communication which incorporated the written minutes on one side of the screen and video clips of dialogue illustrating the topics under discussion on the other. The key point here is that none of this would have been tackled as quickly or as imaginatively had the deputy-chair of the COPS group not been from a SpecialSchool and the culture of the COPS group not been committed intellectually and interpersonally to inclusion.

Student autonomy at Harding House School

Part of Booker Park, a special school in Aylesbury, Buckinghamshire, Harding House Sixth Form caters for SLD / PMLD students aged 16 -19. Commitment to student autonomy is central to its work and expresses itself in a range of ways, including IEP targets, the Student Council and Annual Reviews.

There has been a strong drive to increase student involvement in target setting. There was considerable awareness of the institutional dangers of low staff expectation and tokenism; of ‘delayed teaching’ where the impetus of more active decision making in Early Years and Foundation Curriculum is diminished; of a lack of appropriate communication strategies / resources leading to easy options or not bothering at all; and of the inevitably time-consuming nature of the process. There was also awareness that challenges for students included suggestibility; dependency and the attraction of the safe option; patchy presence of the skills of self-knowledge, negotiation and prediction. These dangers for staff and students were addressed in a variety of ways including students having more allocated time with personal tutors to discuss personal goals, the accrediting of the action planning process through OCR on National Skills Profile and Learning Skills modules, and for PMLD students the more intensive involvement of families and staff in the actual setting and recording of goals.

With regard to the School Council there was a recognition that it was not effective in enabling current Harding House students to contribute to the running of either their class or the whole school. For some students the School Council was meaningful and important and for others not. The school’s response, at various stages of development and implementation includes the introduction of class councils dealing with everyday issues such as choosing break time drinks, playground games, seating arrangements, and celebrating achievements of class members, both at home and in school. Also planned are ‘department councils’ dealing with bigger issues such as fundraising activities for local and national charities, whole school assemblies and celebration, schools outings, and issues round school rules and discipline. The recording of School Council Meetings and their recommendations in an accessible format is also taken seriously and adequate time given to review and discuss issues.

The approach to Annual Reviews is equally impressive. Moving from a situation which was strong in a number of areas there were, nonetheless some gaps and a need to develop an even greater degree of engagement and agency. Thus, students were not originally involved in the running of their own review meetings and were not invited or empowered to make decisions about location, who to invite, refreshments, seating plan and so on. The norm now is that they are involved in every stage of the planning for the review and are active participants in it. Students have an initial meeting in the office with an administrator and their Personal Tutor to discuss who should be invited to the meeting and why. Having been shown exemplars, students designed their own invitations, produced them in ICT, and sent them out.