ACCS Invitation to Student Voice Webinar on Wednesday 7th December 2022 12:30p.m.-2:30p.m.

Dear colleagues and students,

I hope you are well and that this first term has been a fruitful one in terms of your student voice work. As we approach the end of term, we want to check in and reconnect with schools and to explore and share the different school experiences in this area.  

With this in mind, ACCS is scheduling a webinar on Wednesday 7th December from 12.30-2.30pm with a view to reconnecting with the schools who are already engaged with the SV project and welcoming new schools to work with us on promoting authentic and meaningful student and learner voice in our school communities.  The webinar will be facilitated by the team which includes Gerard O’Sullivan (NCCA) and Ger Halbert along with Dr Domnall Fleming (UCC) and Áine O Sullivan (ACCS).

Schools are asked to nominate interested students who have been involved in Student Voice initiatives at whole school or classroom level to attend the webinar with one liaison teacher. 

During the webinar there will be opportunities in breakout rooms and in the main room for participants to share their experiences of school-based initiatives which facilitate their voices being heard.  In preparation for the webinar, students should consider the following:  

·   What student voice initiative is working well? How do you know?

The ACCS/NCCA Student Voice project uses the Lundy Model of Participation in planning and reviewing different Student Voice initiatives.  When presenting your school's initiative to the group, it would be useful if you could include consideration of the following: 

·   Space: How did you create a safe and inclusive space for students to express their ideas and opinions?

·   Voice: Were there particular approaches that worked well in listening to student voices?

·   Audience:  Who was listening to the students and did these people have the power to respond to them?

·   Influence: What difference has this Student Voice initiative made to students in your school?  

Students and Teachers registering for the webinar should use the email address attached to the Zoom account they intend to access the webinar on. Please make sure your zoom client is up to date. Click on the link https://support.zoom.us/hc/en-us/articles/201362233-Upgrading-Zoom-to-the-latest-version and there you will find information on why you should keep your version of Zoom updated, information on new features, and links to download the latest version of Zoom for your device.

Note: To allow full engagement in the conversation and discussions within breakout rooms, we recommend that the students are registered on separate emails and can attend on separate devices. Of course, some students may wish to share a device, and, in this case, they will be able to access the breakout room together on the same device. Where participants are registered on separate emails and on separate devices, to minimise feedback it would be best if each participant were in a separate location, however, that may not be possible, so we would ask that if using separate devices in the same room, then participants should use headphones and keep mics muted unless speaking. A handy tip for pc or mac users, is that the spacebar acts like a ‘push to talk’ button on a walkie talkie and will activate the mic for as long as the spacebar is depressed. 

Participants are requested to register on the link below by Tuesday 6th December at 4 pm so that breakout rooms can be populated before the event. 

https://us02web.zoom.us/meeting/register/tZIld-6sqzsoHNWd1coEQo7yPEnFAakDwfPi 

Please note that this event may be recorded.

We are really excited to be reconnecting with schools in this way and at this event we hope to share with you our plans for student voice and student participation in our school communities for the rest of this academic year. Please forward this email to relevant colleagues working in promoting student voice activities in your school and if you or colleagues have any queries about this event, you can contact Áine at aosullivan@accs.ie. 

Kindest regards, 

Áine O’Sullivan, Assistant General Secretary, ACCS