1, Review your practice
As with most areas of school life it is important to begin by taking stock of where you are at present and where you want to be.
How do you actually know what your pupils think about your school? If you do have a School Council, is it truly representative of your pupils and does it provide an opportunity for all children to feel that they are being listened to and that their views are valued and acted upon? Take some time to consult with your staff, parents and, of course, the pupils themselves. Talking of which
2, Shaking up school councils
It is easy for the School Council to become a token gesture. The same outspoken children who are prepared to volunteer or who are constantly voted in. The same list of discussions about toilets and playgrounds.
Consider ringing the changes with a more frequent consultation process. Can you build into your planning weekly class meetings that generate more comment from a wider range of pupils? Can this then lead to rotating representation on the School Council? See my recent article on pupil voice in which I discuss ways to inject a bit of energy into our School Council set-ups.
3, Questionnaires and surveys
These are valuable for providing a broad-brush indication using easily categorised questions and answers. You can collect a large number of opinions and summarise the responses easily using a rating scale (very good to poor). For younger children, smiley faces or other pictorial representations might be used.
Remember, a question that might seem clear to you could be confusing for a child, so it is a good idea to pilot your questionnaire on a small sample of pupils before sending it out across the school.
Doing this will also give you opportunity to follow-up with this smaller “focus group” to getting even greater insights.
However, while there are many benefits to questionnaires, they do not allow you to follow-up responses easily. Consider using a few open-ended questions to get more detail, particularly when someone has expressed a negative answer.
Of course, younger pupils may not have the language to express themselves sufficiently. To catch the views of younger pupils you can ask them to use pictures. For example, using a map of the school and asking pupils to colour-code where they feel safe and where they don’t.
4, Individual interviews
Interviews, unlike questionnaires, give you plenty of opportunity to discover more. However, individual interviews are time-consuming and require the permission of parents. And to make them reasonably representative you have to conduct more than one. Having said this, if you have a specific topic in mind, it can be a particularly good way of eliciting the information you need.
As a senior leader it can be difficult to conduct the interviews yourself as your pupils inevitably want to please you with their answers. So sometimes using another member of staff to ask the questions will be more effective in getting “honest” answers.
5, Group interviews
To save time you might prefer to do a group interview. You can select a cross-section of children and it can have the advantage of being a more informal and relaxed discussion. However, it can also be dominated by stronger voices and be more intimidating for those who you really need to hear from. Having opportunity to chat to a group who are already engaged together in some other task can be more natural – the discussion is likely to be less artificial.
6, Anecdotal information
Don’t dismiss incidental comments that your pupils make. You might even want to keep a log of these as they are often the ones delivered spontaneously and from the heart. Ask other members of staff to let you know about any comment they think has relevance. This can include comments that parents make about their children’s views of school life.
7, Diaries
A selected group of older students might be asked to keep a diary for a specified period of time. They can record their feelings about different lessons, what they did in the playground, what they ate for lunch etc. You might structure this quite formally with “ratings” or just leave it to the pupil to choose their own methods of recording. Either way, time will need to be allocated to this during the day.
8, What do pupils think of lessons?
As a school leader or indeed a teacher, do you ask pupils what they like about their lessons? Of course, we check on the knowledge pupils have retained, but it is also worthwhile asking them regularly how they feel about the content of the lessons and the way it is delivered to them.
Also at the end of each topic children can be asked to select their favourite piece of work. The pieces they choose can produce interesting insight into how they feel about their classes. This can also provide a useful starting point for a discussion with subject leaders.
9, Observing pupils about the school
Take time when you can to observe the dynamics at non-lesson times of the school day. With a busy schedule it can be easy to be there and yet not present. Try and take time to observe how the pupils are using the playground equipment for example or how the lunchtime system makes them feel. Talk to pupils at these moments or as they arrive and leave at school to get their views about all manner of issues.
10, Actions
Perhaps most important is letting your pupils know they can make a difference. Build into your planning ideas for how you will let them know what you’ve done in response to their comments, suggestions, and requests. If it turns out that you can’t act on some suggestions, then explain why. After all, we want our pupils to become thoughtful, engaged adults – and this is where it starts.
- Suzanne O’Connell is a freelance education writer and a former primary school headteacher. You can find more top 10 tips pieces via www.headteacher-update.com/content/best-practice/category/leadership-and-policy/top-10-tips