Student representation in school accountability

[philipjohn]

This is flaky, mostly because of the 'local accountability' bit given that many schools have no local accountability any more. However, I like the principle behind the idea of student councils with a president at the table with governers/parents/headteachers so would like to find a way of doing that well.

[PaulJRobinson]

I'm not quite clear on the role/powers/responsibility that a Student Council would have within a school. What would their relationship be with the Board of Governors?

[philipjohn]

I'd hope that the student president would have an equal place on the governing board. S/he would take decisions/questions/requests from the student council to the Board of Governors.

[Floppy]

This seems reasonable. 👍

In related news, there was a lot of feedback at LOPO the other night that getting this collaborative manifesto idea into schools would be a good idea as a way of encouraging participation.

[PaulJRobinson]

The Student Governor would need to operate on same rules as Staff Governors: exclusion from certain confidential 'Part II' agenda items when the Board sits in closed session at the end: discussions on matters of child protection; sensitive staffing matters eg grievances or disciplinary items.

I believe most Governing Bodies allow (or if they have any sense they should) any parent/staff/student to sit and observe their meetings except for the closed session items mentioned above. So I have no problem with them being a part of the board as a voting member. I think it should be restricted to over 16 year olds though.

[philipjohn]

Are you in general agreement on this one then @PaulJRobinson ? I was thinking the President should probably be a key stage 4 (yrs 10 & 11) so could add that in?

[frankieroberto]

👍 great idea. Wording could be tightened though.

[PaulJRobinson]

Yeah great, I think it would need to be a KS 4 student as you suggest. Is a "School Accountability Board" the same as a Governing Body? I'm not familiar with that term. If not, that would mean, in your current wording of the PR, that the Student President wouldn't be sitting on the Governing Body?

[philipjohn]

Just added clarification on the board - see commit comment.

[PaulJRobinson]

Excellent - as I say I think they would need to be excluded from staff-sensitive (disciplinary/grievance) items as well as child protection items that Governors discuss, but other than that I think it's a great suggestion 👍

[Floppy]

👍

[Floppy]

This proposal is open for discussion and voting. If you are a contributor to this repository (and not the proposer), you may vote on whether or not it is accepted.

How to vote

Vote by entering one of the following symbols in a comment on this pull request. Only your last vote will be counted, and you may change your vote at any time until the change is accepted or closed.

vote	symbol	type this	points
Agree	👍	:thumbsup:	1
Abstain	✋	:hand:	-1
Block	👎	:thumbsdown:	-1000

Proposals will be accepted and merged once they have a total of 2 points when all votes are counted. Votes will be open for a minimum of 7 days, but will be closed if the proposal is not accepted after 90.

Votes are counted automatically here, and results are set in the merge status checks below.

Changes

If the proposer makes a change to the proposal, no votes cast before that change will be counted.