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150 students and school leaders in Hamilton, Auckland, Wellington and Christchurch had the opportunity to listen and learn together at the August 2007 iNet New Zealand seminar series. The seminars looked at the challenge of 'making the school the student's community' through authentic student voice.
Gabrielle Leigh, director of three school campuses in Caroline Springs, Victoria, led the seminars. Her new K-12 schools in Australia have shown astounding growth rate and achievement. As a community, Caroline Springs shares facilities and resources between state, Catholic and private schools, as well as the local council, health agencies and industry.
With 52 nationalities represented among 1888 students at her schools, and a comprehensive, shared structure of school management, Gabrielle's belief is that 'everyone needs to feel secure,' hence the importance of student voice in ensuring no-one is lost in this enormous, ambitious enterprise.
From David Hargreaves' student voice gateway, Gabrielle laid the theoretical foundations for her work. Hargreaves defines student voice as 'how students come to play a more active role in their education and schooling as a direct result of teachers becoming more attentive, in sustained or routine ways, to what students say about their experience of learning and of school life'.
Gabrielle gave examples of how her schools provide sustained and routine opportunities to hear student voice; these include an annual student learning conference, skills for effective meetings, and a strategic planning process for student voice.
From this foundation, adult and student delegates separated to workshop further ideas on student voice.
With skillful facilitation from Rachel Saunders and Anna Smith, The students responded quickly to the opportunity to be heard. They soon realised that student voice is 'not simply about introducing new structures, such as student councils, or about providing other occasional opportunities for students to speak their mind or have their say. It is about forming more open and trustful relationships between staff and students.'
Overwhelmingly, students across the country expressed their desire to have a voice in their learning.
A sense of frustration and helplessness was sometimes evident:
Students also had many practical strategies for increasing student voice and asked to 'work in partnership with teachers as we move more forward' (Christchurch). Ideas included:
They want to develop and run their own activities, by them and for them. Mostly, students simply sought opportunities for open conversation where everyone's opinions counted.
In the adult workshop, further challenges were placed before the delegates, which included principals, teachers, technology leaders, school advisors, BOT members and those in health and the MOE.
Gabrielle uses annual student attitudes surveys to monitor student engagement and stimulate discussion within the school community about improving this. She also actively trains her teachers in strategies for hearing students' voice in everyday classroom scenarios, and ensures students have the tools for appropriate dialogue.
Adopting a state-wide initiative for involving students more explicitly in their own assessment and reporting, students document their personal learning goals and then report on them as part of the formal reporting process. 'Students are reporting a feeling of greater engagement in their learning and a real sense of being a 'co-partner' with their teacher in moving their learning forwards.'
To conclude the seminar, each student group reported back with a summary of their thinking. Entertaining, eloquent, challenging and powerful, the students proved their ability to express their voice. Each school's delegation of staff and students then shared their thoughts together and committed to a strategy for moving forward.
One of the key resources available to schools, staff and students to continue the journey of enabling authentic student voice is membership of iNet. Networking means educators no longer work in isolation. Together, they can solve problems, share successes and access both theory and numerous samples of practice. iNet also involves students in global online conferences and provides leadership and learning opportunities for youth. For students who attended the NZ seminar series, a blog has been set up and the dialogue continues there. iNet NZ will continue to encourage and facilitate opportunities for networking over student voice. For more information about iNet, and how to join, visit www.sst-inet.net/nz.aspx, or contact the iNet NZ executive at inet@waikato.ac.nz.
Juliette Hayes iNet NZ Executive
The seminar series was supported by the generous sponsorship of