ACCS: Reflections and Workshop Ideas following the Student Voice Events in Portlaoise, March 2023.
Dear Colleagues,
On behalf of the Student Voice team, I want to thank all schools who attended the SV event in Portlaoise and apologies to all who didn’t get an opportunity to be with us. There will be other opportunities, we promise.
Please find attached the various reports which will give a “flavour” of the events. The atmosphere was electric, and a great deal of really good work was facilitated during the workshops over the two days.
The attached documents include both the feedback we received during the different activities and at the end of the events. We have also sketched out some workshop ideas that could be used as follow-on activities for schools. The real objective here is that schools build on developing their capacity in Student Voice and extend the activities to all students, and all the different voices at home and in the school community. Student Councils and other student representative groups may wish to run similar workshops in school and these workshop ideas might assist in that work.
Please read over the attached reports – one of these is specifically designed for the students and can be printed off in A4 landscape style (2 pages/print both sides). Student groups might like to use this document as a starting point when chatting to other students about the session and where the conversations about the education system went on the day.
We are interested in doing a follow up online webinar with schools in the weeks after Easter where we can host a “check in clinic” and can discuss what schools are doing with the workshop ideas. ACCS will issue an invitation to all schools to participate in this event.
We hope that these resources will be useful for schools and will inform you about what happened during the event. Please note that the feedback is presented as it was offered during the event. We have not attempted to interpret or create our own narrative as we are more interested in presenting the authentic voice of those present on both days.
I look forward to contacting you after the school holidays with a plan for the webinar. In the meantime, on behalf of the team and all in ACCS, I hope you have some well earned “downtime” with friends and family during the Easter holidays.
Kindest Regards,
Áine O’Sullivan, Assistant General Secretary, ACCS
Addenda
· Education Report Card Feb 2023
· Future of Education - Co-construction of Language
· Wellbeing and CBAs March 2023
· Why it is important for young people to have a voice in school