Schools will collaborate to involve pupils in governance and assess its impact on the governing body and the wider school community as well as the pupils involved. The aim is to evaluate associate governorship as a pupil participation strategy and notably its effect on school decision making by comparison with other approaches, for instance: membership of school councils or community forums or through involvement in staff interview panels.
The principle of collaboration lies at the heart of the project. All schools can and many schools will appoint associate members unilaterally. But those schools who are participating in this project are committed to sharing resources and experiences. As well as reducing time demands and workload, if managed well, collective responsibility should lead to a collective accountability to making the project work. The draft development plan for the project is presented below.
Draft Project Plan
1. Development and Planning August - December 2003
This phase has included the following activities:
- Background research on issues relating to governance and pupil voice in schools;
- A development day on October 13 2003 for interested schools, to begin the creation of a research, development and evaluation model;
- Follow-up contact with interested schools;
- The writing of a full proposal, and fundraising for Phases 3 and 4 of the project.
- The identification of participating schools, who have expressed their commitment in writing; each school governing body has agreed, in principle to appoint pupils as associate members;
- Funding has been secured for Phase 2;
- This report has been written.
2. Preparation and Induction January - August 2004
Phase 2 will involve the following activities:
- Local research into schools’ needs and history of pupil participation;
- Participating schools and LEAs, with support from the project team, will detail their approach to associate pupil governorship in action plans;
- Developing frameworks for choosing pupil governors in each school;
- Planning, design and delivery of training within local LEA clusters for young people interested in become associated governors;
- Pupil governors will be elected (or otherwise selected);
- Planning, design and delivery of induction programme for new pupil governors and existing adult governors within an LEA cluster;
- Development of an independent evaluation framework by an external consultant;
- Writing a short report to disseminate the experiences of Phase 2.
The intended outcomes of Phase 2 are:
- The project will form part of each schools SDP for 2004-2006
- Models for the selection/election of pupil governors;
- A cohort of pupil governors, (s)elected and inducted to take on their responsibilities from September 2004;
- Evaluation Framework in place;
- Publication of Getting Ready for Pupil Governorship on the IPPR and Citizenship Foundation websites.
- Funding secured for Phases 3-4 of the project;
3. Research and Support September 2004 - July 2006
During this Phase, the project will work intensively in each participating school for two years, and be evaluated at national and school levels both through self-evaluation and external evaluation. Participating schools will be given opportunities to network and share practices and to work with each other and with members of the Advisory Group. It is envisaged that a residential weekend in the summer term of 2005 will bring the pupils and adults involved in the project together to share their experiences.
Project findings will be disseminated throughout the course of the two years. An interim project report (Pupil Governorship: initial experiences and early lessons) will be web published in August 2005. The final report (Making pupil governorship work) will also be web published and, if sufficient additional funding, a commercial publisher or a statutory channel (such as the DfES) can be identified, in book form. This will initiate the final stage of the project in August 2005.
4. Evaluation and Dissemination August – December 2006
The existence of a legal provision for associate governorship demands the need for advice to schools on best practice and a comparative analysis with other modes of pupil participation and of the extent to which they become successfully integrated with them.
In this context, the final phase of the project will involve:
- Review by the Advisory Group of ongoing evaluative feedback from the participating schools;
- An independent evaluation report by the external contractor who undertook the evaluation in schools during Phase 3;
- The web publication of Making pupil governorship work and, as noted above, possibly in print;
- A dissemination conference that assesses and shares the experience of the project participants and facilitates comparative analysis with other modes of pupil participation.
