Last year I wrote about our student voice initiatives. A highlight for the group this year was presenting a two-hour interactive workshop at the Project Zero Sydney conference. While they largely operate independently, yesterday I had my termly pizza lunch with them. It is hard not to be humbled and impressed by their ideas and actions. This term they have allocated pairs of students to particular subjects to consider how they/we might encourage more involvement and commitment from students. They call it ‘student democracy’. Yes, I know, warning bells start ringing when I think that educators are about to be told how to do their job by students, yet their sensitivity and realistic awareness of appropriate boundaries never ceases to astound me.

Yesterday they presented the results of their in-school research:

• They queried selecting the students who always put their hands up in classes as others are often too nervous
• They enjoy the choice involved in matrix activities.
• They really value it when teachers/departments provide them with feedback forms
• They have enjoyed giving feedback on assignments and helping design them for future years
• They love it when they have teachers who ask questions along the lines of “Can you see a better way of us doing this?”
• They are enjoying the PBL focus across the school and feel that it entices students to continue with certain subjects (“lots of teachers are really on board with it”)
• They are keen to explore further ways of providing students choice and voice, especially in Years 7 and 8
• They really value being involved in departmental Monday Morning Team Learning Time.

It strikes me that this is a pretty impressive list of methods to increase student involvement and commitment. Now we need to determine what to do with these suggestions.

Working with this group is inspiring and invigorating, though we are still learning how to work together, step by step.