I need to be listened to when I feel lonely... am excited... have ideas about replacing tables and chairs... am worried... get bullied.”

These were just some of the comments recorded by children on leaf-shaped pieces of paper which were then taken along to “The Pupils’ Voice” conference, hosted by Angus Council’s education department at the beginning of November.

The thoughts of all 162 children present were attached to two “listening trees” at the start of each day, while the children themselves added their names to a graffiti wall headed “Every child has a right to a name”, one of the tenets of the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child.

As Carrie Lindsay, conference organiser and Angus’s 0-14 adviser, explained: “The Convention has been linked to the Standards in Scotland’s Schools etc Act 2000, and has become the impetus behind Angus’s drive to explore creative ways of consulting with pupils, an aim which has now become part of the council’s own development plan.

“Angus intends that not only should each of its 60 schools have a pupil council by the end of this academic year, but that each school should be able to demonstrate consultation with its council on at least one aspect of the school’s development plan.”

So what makes a “good” school council? A drama performed by a group of pupils from Forfar Academy provided plenty of food for thought.

All human life was there - from the disruptive child who shouted down the others to the one who constantly needed the toilet, to the conciliatory child who tried to listen and understand. But the drama was about more than showing good and bad models of communication. For the adults present it demonstrated that communication doesn’t just happen through discussion.

Role play may sometimes be a more appropriate way of helping children to see a problem in the round and reach an appropriate decision. This happened in the second workshop of the day where children took on the roles of parents, shopkeepers, the unemployed and environmentalists to decide whether or not a road necessary to keeping open a factory should be built across an existing playpark.

The word on every child’s lips at the end of this session was “compromise”, even if that did involve running an electric train underneath the park, or building the road round it and erecting a high fence between the two.

For the 56 adults present, the exercise raised the vexed question of what to do when children’s suggestions proved impossible to implement for financial or other reasons. Carlogie Primary, Carnoustie, has tackled this head-on, as special-needs teacher David McArthur explained: “Our council is allocated its own budget by the school’s management team, so they learn about financial constraints first-hand.”

Another area of concern for staff attending was the age at which pupils should be involved. Carlogie has one representative from each class from P1 through to P7. At Chapelpark Primary, P1s only join after Christmas. At Andover Primary, Brechin, only those from P3 upwards are involved while at Birkhill Primary, P1s and P2s have the chance to sit in on the proceedings but are not members of the council.

Just as diverse are the means of feeding back the council’s deliberations to the school as a whole. Some schools rely on the children doing this informally by word of mouth.

“At Carlogie,” says David McArthur, “time is allocated in class for the discussion of the minutes. A tape recording of the event goes to P1s since they would have difficulty reading what’s been said. Minutes also go to the PTA whose meetings are attended by two of our council members.”

Bill Imlay, headteacher at Birkhill, felt that he would now be re-organising his own school council, not least as the result of the activity with which both children and adults ended the day.

Children were asked to create something to show things they thought would improve their school, while the adults produced a graphic representation of a good school council on an OHP. The results of both exercises were shared with the group as a whole.

“I think we’ll now be looking at other ways of taking forward discussion,” Imlay said, “inviting children to express their views pictorially and in other ways - not just in words.”

The importance of pupil councils in preparing children to take an active part in the democratic process was underlined by the presence at the conference of Peter Wishart MP and John Swinney MSP, a point not lost on Imlay.

“At the moment we elect our representatives by show of hands. In future, I think we’ll consider the kind of secret ballot we currently use for choosing house captains.”

Children, too, felt the day had made a difference. Paige Torfs of Hayshead Primary said: “It’s been amazing. I’ve never been picked for anything like this before and I think I’ll feel more confident speaking out in future.”

Christian Watt and Corey McWalter, also of Hayshead, agreed. In Corey’s words: “What was great was just the way the staff listened to us.”