Reading through social-media posts, Stephanie Hill noticed something: while teachers had a lot of opinions about learning, few had thought to ask the pupils for theirs.
“As teachers, we don’t necessarily have all the answers,” the associate head at Passmores Academy, in Harlow, Essex, says. “What would happen if we started bringing the students into the conversation in a more meaningful way?”
If school leaders really want to make sure that they are offering the best teaching and learning possible, Ms Hill believes, they need to listen to what pupils have to say.
The associate head, responsible for pedagogy at the academy, therefore recruited a group of volunteer student pedagogues (or stu-peds, as they became known). They are responsible for gathering pupil views on learning and feeding it back to staff and senior leaders.
In a presentation delivered at this year’s British Educational Leadership, Management and Administration conference, Ms Hill suggested that leaders in other schools would benefit from listening to pupil feedback in the same way.
Part of the Passmores stu-peds’ role involves going into classes and observing teachers’ lessons. During these observations, they discuss with pupils what they are and are not enjoying, and how they think the subject might have been made more interesting.
“The students know that staff aren’t performing monkeys,” Ms Hill says. “Learning is more than what happens when you’re being observed. It’s every single lesson, every single day.”
Following an observation, the stu-peds discuss their ideas with the teacher, and together develop a 15-minute lesson, which the stu-peds deliver. Afterwards, they analyse what they have learned from the experience.
Learning is more than what happens when you’re being observed. It’s every single lesson, every single day
‘Extending the engagement’
Malcolm Trobe, interim general secretary of the Association of School and College Leaders, says that this takes one of the elements of student voice - learning surveys or discussion sessions - and pushes it further.
“It’s extending the engagement and the involvement of students in one specific area: students’ understanding of what’s going on in terms of the learning process,” he says.
Initially, students’ feedback was overly blunt and slightly personal. Since then, however, they have learned to make general points, illustrated by specific examples.
“It’s given us a different viewpoint on teaching and learning,” says Natalie Christie, Passmores’ vice-principal. “What you’re getting is a better dialogue about what learning is taking place.”
This dialogue is vital, Mr Trobe believes. “It’s about getting information back from the youngsters about the methods that suit them,” he says. “But also about getting them to understand the way that teaching has to work to meet the demands of the testing regime.”
It is, Ms Hill acknowledges, a significant culture change for both sides of the classroom to adjust to: one in which there are only co-learners, rather than pupils and teachers. “It scares a lot of people,” she says. “Some staff were saying, ‘What do they know? They’re just students; I’ve got a degree’.
“This is not about students being experts in content or curriculum. But they can bring something to the conversation about how they learn better.”
