Encouraging our students to have 'a voice'

- Ms Freebairn on the importance of giving young people a voice

The United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (1989) highlights a child’s right to participate. Article 12 states children should be free to express their views and to be heard, while Article 13 asserts that children have the right of freedom of expression, freedom to seek and impart information through any media of the child’s choice.

At St Mary’s Junior School we take these rights seriously and encourage our students to have ‘a voice’. This primarily manifests itself through our Student Council, in which every pupil in the school has the opportunity to have her say on matters to do with school life.

Twice a year elections are held in each class to determine which pupils will sit on the Student Council. Those girls wishing to become council members must deliver a speech to their class mates to put forward their case to become the class representative. The excitement of democracy in action regularly sees most pupils participating. I am always impressed by the level of engagement the girls show and, in my experience, votes are typically cast for the person who made the most convincing speech (rather than, for instance, a sense of duty to vote for friends). The whole experience of standing for election builds the girls’ confidence and develops their skills in public speaking.

Once elected, the class representatives meet together as the Student Council once a fortnight, bringing with them ideas for discussion from their classmates. I facilitate the meetings and take minutes, which are then reported back from the representatives to their class mates. These minutes are then sent to Mr Hald who provides direct feedback to the School Council.

The areas most commonly raised in the Student Council centre on: playground needs; after school clubs; curriculum requests; lunch menu suggestions and charity fundraising ideas. The discussions are full and frank, with even the younger girls coming up with innovative and relevant ideas.

In order for the Student Council to be a meaningful body and a worthwhile investment for the pupils, ideas raised need to be carefully considered and so, where realistic, many suggestions are implemented. A recent example of decision making in action was during the Junior School’s annual Enterprise Week.

CAFOD was chosen in advance to be the recipient of any profits made in the Enterprise Fair, and the student councillors took responsibility for deciding exactly how to spend every penny raised, through the CAFOD World Gifts catalogue. So, in different towns across Sub Saharan Africa, there are communities benefitting from a communal toilet, a farmer support programme, and a school starter kit (to name just a few) all thanks to the decisions made by the pupils of St Mary’s Junior School, Cambridge.

The way I see it… a word from Assistant Head, Mr O’Reilly

At the end of my Education studies at the University of Cambridge my thesis focused on ‘pupil voice in architecture’. I argued that children should be invited to be involved in a school’s design from the very beginning – through interviews to discuss what a school building should embody, to sketches of what a school should look like. It would then be the job of the architect to use the children's ideas to inform their design, to create a school building which children love to learn in as much as adults enjoy teaching in.

At St Mary's Junior School, Cambridge we are fortunate to already have a beautiful school building – not originally a school, but now developed into an inspiring place to teach and learn. Our girls spend at least six hours a day or 32 hours per week in school, so it is right that they should have some say in how the school is run, and future developments. We do this through our excellent Student Council, which gives the girls a platform to contribute relevant and important insight to decision makers, through using the united student voice of the Junior School. I am confident that in future projects such as developing the Junior School site or grounds, the girls would be the first group I would turn to for ideas and inspiration.