Smart School Councils

Smart School Councils

At a glance

Causes

  • Children / families
  • Education
  • Training / employment support
  • Young people

Other details

Geographical remit: 
International

Objectives

Smart School Councils is a teacher-led charity that helps young people to become active and democratic citizens. Our aim is for young people to leave school with a broad range of key skills to help them engage with democracy and society.

Activities

To achieve our aims, we support schools to set up Smart School Councils. It is a new and innovative approach that is being used by 360 schools across the world.

This is a whole-school approach that easily involves and develops the skills of all pupils – skills like oracy, leadership, communication and compromise. It creates system change that extends involvement from the 7% of pupils typically developing skills in traditional school councils to 100% of pupils in many schools.  

Evidence suggests these ‘non-cognitive’ skills facilitate academic achievement and are particularly important in closing the attainment gap for disadvantaged pupils (Gutman & Schoon, 2013; Heckman et al 2006).

Schools can join the programme and adopt the model in two ways:

  1. Join the programme by purchasing premium membership. This gives them access to a Manual which provides a clear step by step guide to adopting the model, and all the resources and tools they need to do it.
  2. Attend a CPD Masterclass. This helps schools to understand the shift in thinking associated with the Smart School Council Model and generate enthusiasm. It includes premium membership.

No current opportunities

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