Making children’s and students’ voices heard
Schools have a key role in upholding this principle. At the same time, students need to be aware of both their rights and responsibilities.
Learning about human rights and democracy is a fundamental first step for becoming an informed and responsible citizen.
Students also need to participate in activities such as debating and community work. Skills, knowledge and critical understanding must be coupled with the attitudes and values that form part of a democratic culture. All this should be promoted through a whole-school approach.
Facts & figures
While students make up approximately 92% of any given school’s population, the decisions in school are routinely made by the remaining 8% who are adults.[1]
Students learn better when they are engaged partners throughout the educational process.[2]
What is student voice?
Student voice is the right of students to have a say in matters that affect them in their schools, and to have their views and opinions taken seriously. It encompasses all aspects of school life and decision-making where young learners are able to make a meaningful contribution, adapted to their age and stage of development. It stretches from informal situations in which students express an opinion to their peers or staff members to participation in democratic structures or mechanisms, such as student parliaments and consultations.
Student voice can vary from simple self-expression to taking on a leadership role in an aspect of school life. It can be characterised according to a 6-fold typology of increasing complexity and responsibility:
- Expression – voice an opinion
- Consultation – asked for an opinion
- Participation – attend and preferably play an active role in a meeting
- Partnership – have a formal role in decision-making
- Activism – identify a problem, propose a solution, and advocate its adoption
- Leadership – plan and make decisions
Given that the relevant activities are age-appropriate, student voice can be expressed anywhere in the school community, in and out of lessons, e.g., through inviting students to comment on teaching approaches and techniques, suggest topics for class discussion, participate in school policy committees and/or consultations, or just join in a casual conversation on school matters with a teacher or other staff member in their free time.
Why is student voice important at school?
Student voice is rooted in the concept of children’s rights and human rights. In particular, Article 12 of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (UNCRC) establishes the right of every child to have a say in matters which affect them, whether in or out of school, as well as to be involved in decisions that affect them. More generally, the UNCRC includes other articles that seek to increase students’ voice, including the right to seek and receive information, to express their own views and to associate with others.
UN Convention on the Rights of the Child: Article 12
“Parties shall assure to the child who is capable of forming his or her own views the right to express those views freely in all matters affecting the child, the views of the child being given due weight in accordance with the age and maturity of the child.”[3]
Student voice can have many benefits both for schools and the wider society – for example:
- Participation in school decision-making fosters a sense of citizenship in young learners, helping them to develop important competences, e.g. co-operation and communication skills, self-efficacy, responsibility, civic-mindedness and respect for the value of democracy – all of which lie at the heart of the Council of Europe Reference Framework of Competences for Democratic Culture (RFCDC).
- Contributing to their school community gives young learners a sense of belonging, develops self-esteem and can lead to more respectful relationships. This has a positive influence on school discipline and helps to reduce the incidence of problems such as drop-out, bullying, substance abuse and radicalisation.
- Engaging students in active learning activities in class has a positive effect not only on the classroom atmosphere, but also on the educational achievements of students and their peers.
What are the challenges?
There are a number of major areas of challenge facing the development of student voice in schools.
The first relates to the attitudes of other school stakeholders. Parents, teachers school leaders and others who have traditional views of schooling sometimes feel that children and young people should be ‘seen and not heard’ in school. They think respect for others and for authority are best developed in a culture of deference. To counteract attitudes of this kind school leaders need to introduce elements of student voice gradually, explaining the process clearly to school stakeholders and sharing the successes with them when they take place.
Some stakeholders may see empowering young learners through student voice as undermining their own power or position of authority in the school. Teachers may sometimes feel that students have more rights than they have. This merely underlines the importance of developing a whole-school culture in which all stakeholders feel safe to express their opinions freely and openly, and to have their opinions taken seriously. Student voice goes hand in hand, therefore, with the creation of a general culture of democracy and human rights in school.
The second major area of challenge is ensuring that student participation is genuine participation and not tokenism or ‘window-dressing’. This means giving students opportunities to make a real difference to their lives and the lives of other school stakeholders, and helping staff to be more open to sharing their decision-making with young learners.
The Ladder of Children’s Participation
Roger Hart, in the book Children's Participation: The Theory And Practice Of Involving Young Citizens In Community Development And Environmental Care, developed the concept of a ‘ladder of participation’ which can be applied to student voice. He suggested eight different levels or degrees of student voice, from the simplest - which is little more than the manipulation of students for the school’s benefit - to activities where decision-making is genuinely shared between adults and young learners.
A third area of challenge is the difficulty of making opportunities for student voice equally open to all students. The problem arises to some extent on account of the perception that student voice applies only to formal school structures, like pupil parliaments. For stakeholders with more traditional attitudes towards teaching and learning it can be difficult to see student voice as integral to, rather than separate from the learning process in classrooms. Another aspect of this problem is that it is the more confident and out-going students who are prepared to voice their opinions openly or stand in class or school council elections. How to integrate student voice into learning and to involve a wider range of students in the process is a whole-school responsibility and needs to be taken seriously as an area of whole-school planning and as an important topic for teacher professional development.
How can schools get active?
There are a number of ways in which schools can develop more opportunities for student voice. These include:
- Encouraging teaching staff to consider how they can involve students in the learning process in the classroom, e.g., by creating more opportunities for students to express their own opinions, debate issues, make suggestions or draw up classroom rules;
- Creating mechanisms for student consultation on issues affecting school life, e.g., through questionnaires, suggestion boxes, surveys or focus groups;
- Establishing formal bodies or procedures, e.g., pupil parliaments, student committees and commissions, or ‘circle time’;
- Inviting students to sit on school policy-development committees, e.g., on gender equality, pupil safety or health and well-being;
- Teaching young learners the skills of public speaking and debate, e.g., discussion skills, active listening or argumentation;
- Providing opportunities for peer-led activities, e.g., peer education, peer assessment or peer counselling.
[1] https://soundout.org/why-student-voice-a-research-summary/
[2] https://soundout.org/why-student-voice-a-research-summary/ ; Beaudoin, N. (2005). Elevating student voice: How to enhance participation, citizenship, and leadership. Larchmont, NY: Eye on Education
[3] UN General Assembly, Convention on the Rights of the Child, 20 November 1989, United Nations
Resources on Making children’s and students’ voices heard
Multimedia
Official texts
Policy documents
Studies
Higher education for democratic innovation (Council of Europe Higher Education Series No. 21) (2016)
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Related schools projects
Address: Via Diego d’Amico 1 Bagheria
Country: Italy
Project: Children’s Voices for a new human Space - CVS
Working language during the project:
- English
- Italian at local level
Themes of the Council of Europe project “FREE to SPEAK, SAFE to LEARN - Democratic Schools for All” covered:
- Making children’s and students’ voices heard
- Improving well-being at school
Competences from the Reference Framework of Competences for Democratic Culture (CDC) addressed and where / how they were integrated:
- Making children’s and students’ voices heard
- Improving well-being at school
Target group age range:
- 5 - 11
Level of education:
- Primary education
Short description of the project:
European societies have been facing significant challenges, such as a decline in citizen engagement with democratic processes, an increase in international flows of migrants, high levels of hate crime; intolerance, prejudice and discrimination towards ethnic/religious minorities living within Europe; a rise in xenophobic political groups, and the ongoing security threat posed by radicalisation and violent extremism. In this context, launching activities aimed at promoting European values, intercultural understanding, and citizens’ participation in public life, will make an invaluable contribution to the quality of life in Europe.
The CVS project is based on the idea that participation in democratic societies is essential to reduce the negative impact of these trends, and that young people have to be encouraged to think about the environmental, social and economic problems affecting their lives.
The CVS project builds upon a larger project of the CoE, “Reference Framework of Competences for Democratic Culture” (RFCDC), which has developed a new reference framework of the democratic and intercultural competences that citizens require to participate effectively in democratic culture and intercultural dialogue. Democratic and intercultural competences are not acquired automatically but instead need to be learned and practised, and education has a key role to play in preparing students for life as active democratic citizens and endowing them with the ability to function as autonomous social agents capable of choosing and pursuing their own goals in life. The RFCDC is designed to assist educational planning towards this goal of empowering learners for life as competent democratic citizens.
In order to achieve the project objectives, a variety of activities will be carried out:
- the development/implementation/testing of the CVS Training Course for teachers, aimed at improving teachers’ knowledge about pedagogical methods and techniques they can use to promote their pupils’ democratic and intercultural competence;
- the development/implementation/testing of the CVS Curriculum for children, aimed at fostering pupils’ democratic and intercultural competence;
- the development/implementation/testing of the CVS Supervision App for teachers, aimed at allowing the online methodological supervision of teachers’ activities;
- the planning/implementation of the CVS Study, aimed at evaluating the efficacy of the CVS Training Course for teachers, the CVS Curriculum for children and the adequacy of the CVS Supervision App for teachers as an IT tool for assisting teachers’ supervision;
- two short-term joint staff training events addressed at teachers: the first event will be aimed at implementing the CVS Training Course, the second event will be aimed at implementing a training programme focused on the CVS Curriculum for children and the use of the CVS Supervision App for teachers;
- a short-term exchange of groups of pupils, aimed at increasing pupils’ collaboration with peers of partner schools and allowing them to share their experiences;
- a series of multiplier events at local and transnational level, aimed at disseminating the intellectual outputs foreseen by the project.
Direct beneficiaries of the project will be about 30-35 teachers and 200-250 pupils of 5 European public primary schools (located in Bulgaria, Italy, Norway, Romania, and Spain). The project activities will directly involve: 10 Key Classes (two for each partner school) that in the first year of the project will be at the third grade; about three teachers for each Key Class, one of whom will play the role of Core Teacher; and about 20-25 pupils for each Key Class.
Indirect beneficiaries will be other teachers, students and staff members of the partner schools, pupils’ families and local communities of the towns where the schools are located, and the Council of Europe.
Aims/objectives
The overall aim of the CVS project is to foster the democratic and intercultural competences of both teachers and students in the primary school context, by drawing on the RFCDC.
Objective 1: To enhance teachers’ access to democratic and intercultural education practices.
Objective 2: To increase teachers’ knowledge about democratic and intercultural education.
Objective 3: To equip teachers with tools, techniques and methods to promote and assess pupils’ democratic and intercultural competences.
Objective 4: To foster the development of pupils’ democratic and intercultural competences.
Objective 5: To empower pupils offering them the opportunity to participate effectively in public life and in decision-making processes, making their voices heard.
Objective 6: To promote the involvement of pupils with a migrant or minority background.
Expected results/outcomes
The impact of the CVS project refers to the sustainable long-term change achieved in relation to the project objectives for the different kind of project targets groups and stakeholders.
1. For the project direct participants and organizations are
- Teachers involved in the project activities (30-35)
- Pupils involved in the project activities (200/250)
- Organizations that are partners of the project (10)
2. Indirect participants and organizations are:
- pupils’ parents
- other teachers and pupils of schools indirectly involved by project activities and outputs (5450)
- local communities
- the Council of Europe
- other stakeholders
1. As for DIRECT participants and organizations the CVS project aims to produce the following impact
Impact on participants
Teachers
At the end of the project the directly involved teachers will be:
- aware of the more recent approaches in the field of DI education;
- equipped with DI skills;
- equipped with renewed social inclusion skills;
- able to use renewed pedagogical methods and practices for promoting DI competences in their daily work;
- able to employ appropriate techniques for the assessment of pupils’ DI competences;
- equipped with new digital competences;
- able to show a strengthened profile of their profession (including higher quality teaching, leadership skills, openness to teaching exchanges and new ideas);
- able to work according to a multidisciplinary and a European collaborative perspective;
Pupils
At the end of the project the directly involved pupils will be able:
- to display DI competences;
- to effectively participate in their school decision-making processes;
- to be more autonomous, responsible and self-confident;
- to be understanding, tolerant and respectful for other people;
- to consider the cultural diversity as a resource in their daily life;
- to be equipped with new social inclusion skills;
- to be aware about their talents and abilities;
- to be equipped with knowledge and skills that will help them to become active and responsible decision-makers for their countries;
2. Indirect participants and organizations are:
Schools
The impact will be:
- the adoption of a new training course for teachers regarding DI education, tested at the European level;
- the adoption of a new curriculum for children aimed at promoting DI competences, tested at the European level;
- the endorsement of innovative and digital practices in the field of DI education;
- the enlargement of their European collaborative perspectives;
- the support for an open classroom climate;
- the improvement of the quality of teaching-learning processes;
- the alignment of the educational programmes with European-level guidelines;
- the improvement of social inclusion practices among the school community members.
Universities
The impact will be:
- the adoption of a reference framework in the field of DI education
- the use of this reference framework for teaching and research purposes;
- the improvement of the quality of academic teaching in the field of DI education;
- the strengthening of the collaboration with the lower-level educational organisations (schools);
- the enlargement of their European collaborative perspectives.
Impact on indirect target groups
Pupils’ parents
The impact will be:
- a higher awareness about the importance of developing DI competences in order to live peacefully together with others in culturally diverse democratic societies;
- a higher positive attitude towards the cultural differences among the nations participating in the partnership and, generally, among other European countries;
- a more active participation in DI actions and decision-making within the schools.
Other pupils, teachers and staff members of the partner schools
The impact will be:
- higher perceptions of positive school climate;
- greater opportunities to participate in DI actions and decision-making within the school.
Local communities
The impact will be:
- a higher awareness about the importance of developing DI competences in order to live peacefully together with others;
- a greater awareness of the need to make children active agents in decision-making processes.
The Council of Europe
The outcomes and findings of the project will be fed back to the CDC expert group at the Council of Europe, who will be able to use the findings to refine their recommendations on curriculum, pedagogy and assessment.
Other stakeholders (other schools, educators, social operators, researcher and other staff from organisations active in the educational field, local and regional authorities, training institutions, research and pedagogical centres, national and European policy makers)
Changes
- an increased access of teachers to DI education practices;
- an increased knowledge of teachers about DI education;
- tools, techniques and methods for teachers aimed at promoting and assessing pupils’ DI competences;
- an increased level of pupils’ DI competences;
- an enhancement in pupils’ awareness about the importance of participating in public life and decision-making processes.
Challenges you faced
Time-frame of the project:
Three years September 2018/August 2021
Council of Europe materials on citizenship and human rights education used while preparing or implementing your practice:
- Reference Framework of Competences for Democratic Culture
- Living Democracy-manuals for teachers
- All Different – All Equal
- Compasito
