Developing links with schools and college councils
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Information about the local authority
Bridgend County Borough Council is a local authority in south Wales with a total population of 144,288. The county lies at the geographical heart of south Wales, stretches 20km from east to west and occupies the Llynfi, Garw and Ogmore valleys. The local authority maintains nine secondary schools, 48 primary (including two infant and one junior) schools, two special schools and a pupil referral unit.
Context and background to the effective or innovative practice
The local authority places a significant emphasis on the importance of consulting with young people and taking good account of their views and opinions. This work is underpinned by an effective participation strategy.
In April 2017, the Education and Family Support Directorate appointed a dedicated Children’s Rights and Participation Worker. The main focus of the role is to develop stronger links between the Bridgend Youth Council and the respective school and college councils. The success of this role has led the local authority to run a recruitment campaign for an additional Children’s Rights and Participation Worker to expand and build upon the positive work completed to date.
Description of nature of strategy or activity
Across the local authority, children and young people make a very positive contribution to influencing decisions about the services that affect them. The emphasis extends beyond consultation to genuinely involving them in the decision-making process and giving feedback on how their contribution has made a difference. Each of the sections below shows examples of the range of activities that help to make this strategy successful.
The local authority wide ‘Participation Network’, which is inclusive of the youth council, elects a youth mayor annually. Specialist groups are set up to implement children’s rights and participation across young people’s services. This process includes the inclusion of vulnerable, marginalised and disengaged children and young people across the local authority. These play an active role in the decision‑making and participation processes through regular meetings and work well with the Bridgend Youth Council. Young people in each school and college provide feedback to the Youth Council’s representatives on their priorities, for example about increased access to, and more awareness raising of, extra-curricular clubs and activities.
During the recent review of post-16 education, pupils from all secondary school councils took part in workshops to provide their views on the ‘ambitions for 16 to 18 education across Bridgend County’. A detailed survey to establish learners’ views of current 16 to 18 provision was also launched and over 1,500 learners aged 16 to 18 responded. The review board found this level of response extremely helpful in supporting their views about the likely impacts of the concepts under consideration.
The Education and Family Support Directorate hold an annual ‘Festival of Learning’, with the learner voice central to this event. A ‘Learners’ Day – Learner Voice Forum’ is held as part of the event. This engages with about 100 primary and secondary school learners in a series of activities that promote participation and stimulate learner-led discussion. For example, in 2018, representatives from all school councils considered ‘What makes children happy in school?’ in advance of the day and their cluster responses were recorded in a short film. As part of the focus on wellbeing at the event, the clusters of school councils were asked to consider what will ‘make them happier in their school and community’. The views of the learners (and teachers) were captured via a number of highly interactive workshop sessions arranged by the Youth Development Team. These views are helping to inform decision-making within the Education and Family Support Directorate.
The local authority’s Inclusion Service reflects the importance of an individualised approach in capturing the views of learners. Teams within the service use varying strategies, including: one page profiles, ‘All About Me’ and ‘My Vision’ documents to facilitate pupil-led reviews and face-to-face interviews, and to discuss confidence scales and pupil questionnaires. This good practice is shared with schools through training, individual pupil, group and whole-class consultations and role modelling during review meetings.
Bridgend Youth Council took the lead for the local authority in addressing ‘period poverty’ through its schools. For the financial year 2017-2018, the local authority used a Welsh Government grant to invest in the provision of free-to-access menstrual products, sanitary equipment and necessary changes to toilet facilities in schools. Members of the Youth Council gave their views on how the local authority should use the funding to maximise the potential of the allocation. They developed a short questionnaire to be completed by pupils to identify the current practice in schools, their experiences of these and their preferred method of accessing products. Youth Council members consulted with senior leaders in schools to identify whether any training for staff was needed and the changes that were necessary to meet young people’s needs successfully.
These consultations found that young people prefer to access products from a member of staff. This enables them to receive information, advice and guidance in addition to a supply of products. With this information, the Youth Council, together with relevant stakeholders, chose to focus on creating more awareness of the availability of free-to-access products within schools. Working with a design company, the Youth Council developed a young person-friendly poster that offered pupils a discreet point of information as to how they can access products. They placed posters on the back of each cubicle door in relevant toilets in all secondary and primary schools. This was an ambitious plan involving over 600 toilets. The local authority children’s rights and participation worker supported the Youth Council’s work and liaised with the relevant departments in the council to ensure that the idea was realised.
What impact has this work had on provision and learners’ standards?
The main driver for the ‘period poverty’ grant was to enable young people that otherwise may have missed school to access products to ensure that their attendance remains unaffected. Engaging with young people through the youth and school councils ensured that the council was in the best position to determine the most appropriate mechanisms to reach affected pupils.
More generally, the learner voice strategy is particularly effective in the delivery of two of the four core purposes in the curriculum for Wales by helping children and young people to develop as:
- ethical informed citizens of Wales and the world
- healthy, confident individuals, ready to live as valued members of society
Active involvement helps the children and young people involved understand how their contributions can be heard through the democratic processes. This work makes valuable contributions to young people’s health and wellbeing, and provides purposeful opportunities to develop literacy skills.
How have you shared your good practice?
The ‘period poverty’ posters and associated material have been adopted in the local authority’s residential settings and wider communities. These are distributed through partnerships with local food banks, community hubs and other local groups.
Good practice has been shared with all schools in the local authority through the school councils and with other local authorities by inviting officers to these events.
The Festival of Learning has also been shared with higher education practitioners through the Conference of Action Research Network (CARN) in Manchester (October 2018).
Other learner voice good practice examples have been shared with schools, Central South Consortium and other stakeholders.