Student Voice Participation Conference - Dublin Castle

 In early 2023, the possibility of a Citizens’ Assembly on the Future of Education was mooted. ACCS saw this an opportunity to explore how young people in ACCS schools could meaningfully be involved in any such review in the future. Transition Year Students in Ballincollig Community School (BCS) were approached to help with the co-design of a workshop to support young people in identifying what they felt was working, could be improved or needed to be changed in our education system.

Portlaoise

Using the ideas created with the BCS students, 40 ACCS schools attended workshops over two days in Portlaoise on February 2023. The Students and their teachers in attendance reflected on and discussed various aspects of the education system including what they saw as the strengths, challenges and priorities for change.

Dublin Castle

Such was the success of these two events, it was decided to hold a one-day student led Student Voice and Participation conference in Dublin Castle on 19th September 2023. The conference was hosted by ACCS, in partnership with NCCA, and represented a significant event in this ACCS Student Voice journey.

The aims of the conference were to:

  • Celebrate the journey of ACCS schools in building a culture of meaningful and authentic Student Voice and Participation.

  • Demonstrate a student-led consultation event to groups and agencies engaged in similar work.

  • Inform an ACCS Student Voice submission on the future of education to policy makers.

  • Showcase a structure for similar student-led events in individual school communities.

The education themes for consideration at this event came from the deliberations by the 40 schools in the Portlaoise event.

They included

  • Wellbeing

  • Representative Voice

  • Inclusion

  • Learning to learn

  • Teacher/Student Relationships

  • Bullying

  • Assessment

The entire event was led and facilitated by a group of students nominated by their schools to act as leaders and facilitators on the day. In order to ensure that these young people would feel confident and competent to undertake these roles on the day, they attended an online facilitation skills training workshop expertly led by Dermot O’Brien from the National Youth Council of Ireland (NYCI). It was inspiring to see how these young people undertook their various roles on making this Student Voice event the resounding success that it was.

Student Voice Participation Conference Report

A report on the conference, with further information on the ACCS Student Voice Forum, it’s origins, inspiration and future along with more indepth analysis of the themes discussed and outcomes reached in Dublin Castle is available to download here.