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      • Enabling Student Voice in the Classroom
      • Campaign! Make an impact
      • Promoting citizenship and values education in primary schools facing challenging socio-economic circumstances: an exploratory pilot
      • Beyond Sectarianism - new thinking for a new generation
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Enabling Student Voice in the Classroom

Nations involved
Ireland
Northern Ireland
Project leads
Mary Gannon, CDETB Curriculum Development Unit
Anne-Marie Poynor, Curriculum Advisory & Support Service, Western Education & Library Board
Project timeline
January 2011 to April 2015
Picture
This project allowed teachers and their students to work together with the project leads to develop ways of enabling greater student voice in the classroom. Schools generally restrict their inclusion of student voice to Student Councils and the project leads believed that classroom teachers could promote student voice in their everyday practice if they were supported and encouraged to do so. Download the report

The principal outcome was the production of a citizenship education module which is now available to teachers throughout the five jurisdictions. Download the module
Aim
To find and develop ways of enabling and supporting greater student voice in the classroom

Actions

At the 2010 Five Nations Network Conference in Cardiff, the project leads met and recruited two teachers from each jurisdiction to work with them and their students to develop ways of enabling greater student voice in the classroom.  With the additional support of the Education for Reconciliation project, they ran two in-service days on student voice for approximately twenty teachers from the two jurisdictions. The in-service took Article 12 of the Convention on the Rights of the Child along with government policy and strategies as the basis for the work.  The teachers were introduced to two tools or frameworks for analysis and planning.

Out of the two in-service days, ideas emerged for how teachers could work with their students to help them develop greater voice in the classroom. In consultation with two of the teachers, the project leads created a draft version of the citizenship education module, which was then piloted by four teachers. After several revisions, the module was again piloted with 14 year olds in two schools, one from each jurisdiction. A group of students and the teachers from these schools were then invited to participate in a review day in Enniskillen in May 2014. Following the students’ feedback, final revisions were made to the module, which will soon be published on-line.

Outcomes

  • Principal outcome
    • Production of a citizenship education module, which is now available to teachers throughout the five jurisdictions
  • Outcomes during development and piloting stage
    • The realisation by teachers of how little say young people had in decisions that affected them
  • Outcomes for the students
    • The creation of a safer environment in the classroom and therefore greater freedom to speak out
    • Having their opinions listened to and credited with significance
    • Greater awareness of how decisions are made and of the importance of their input
    • For those who participated in the review day, this was an opportunity to meet and work together and input into the final shape of the module
  • Dissemination and wider use of module
    • The module will continue to be locally disseminated through teacher and professional development networks in both jurisdictions, as well as being hosted on the websites of the WELB, the CDETB Curriculum Development Unit and the Five Nations website
    • Project leads have used activities from the module in other teacher training.
Last edited January 2016
  • About
    • Strategy Group and Terms of Reference
    • Five Nations Network Management Team
    • Contact us
    • Five Nations Network Evaluation
    • Funding and support
  • Conferences
    • Edinburgh [2025] >
      • Guest Speakers and Session Resources 2025
    • London [2024] >
      • Guest Speakers and Session Resources 2024
    • Dublin [2023] >
      • Guest Speakers and Session Resources 2023
    • Cardiff [2022] >
      • Keynote and session resources 2022
    • Online [2021] >
      • Keynote and session resources 2021
    • Belfast [2020] >
      • Keynote and session resources
      • Photo Gallery
    • Glasgow [2019] >
      • Keynote and session resources 2019
    • London [2018] >
      • Keynote and session resources 2018
    • Dublin [2017] >
      • Workshop and seminar resources 2017
      • Guest and plenary speakers 2017
    • Cardiff [2015] >
      • Seminar resources 2015
      • Keynote speakers 2015
    • Belfast [2014] >
      • Keynote speakers 2014
      • Seminar resources 2014
      • Recommended readings 2014
    • Edinburgh [2013] >
      • Speakers and presentations
      • Workshop Resources
      • Small-Scale Research Initiative Marketplace
    • Reading [2012] >
      • Workshops >
        • Social media and citizenship teaching
        • Engaging young people with democracy and Parliaments
        • 'Comic life'- citizenship through digital story-telling
        • Harnessing digital technologies in citizenship teaching
        • Using Apple-specific technology successfully in teaching
      • Guest speakers
    • Previous conferences [2000-2011]
  • Publications
  • Funded Projects
    • FNDPs 2019-20
    • FNDPs 2017-18
    • FNDPs 2016-17
    • FNDPs 2015-16
    • Completed SSRIs >
      • Promoting Values and Citizenship through Human Rights Education
      • Enabling Student Voice in the Classroom
      • Campaign! Make an impact
      • Promoting citizenship and values education in primary schools facing challenging socio-economic circumstances: an exploratory pilot
      • Beyond Sectarianism - new thinking for a new generation
      • Meeting the cross curricular challenge
    • SSRI Awards >
      • 2014 Awards
      • 2013 Awards
      • 2012 Awards
      • 2011 Awards
      • 2010 Awards
  • Citizenship
    • England
    • Ireland
    • Northern Ireland
    • Scotland
    • Wales
  • News
    • Five Nations Network News
    • Five Nations Network Blogs