Student Voice Journal

The ACCS CPD Programme is designed to support and to empower Boards of Management and their school communities. The well-established tradition of sharing best practice in our schools leads to individual and collective learning both inside school and across schools and to the development of learning networks between schools.

Since 2018 ACCS has been driving a dynamic project on Student Voice and collaborates with the NCCA on this important initiative. The majority of our Community and Comprehensive schools have engaged in the project and there is very strong evidence from our schools of the impact of Student Voice.

“Well, who would know better how to improve their education or quality of education than the people learning”

ACCS Webinar, Jan ‘21

If we look at the last 100 years in terms of the evolution of democracy and equality, we can chart progress in the areas of gender, race, additional needs and sexual identity. Now is the time for children and young people to be heard and to overturn the maxim ‘that children should be seen and not heard’. This is merely an enactment of the UN Convention on The Rights of the Child which recognizes their right to “Express their opinions and be listened to.”

Forums in Portlaoise and Dublin Castle have given practical form to these efforts with those events being managed and moderated by the students leading to further, direct, engagement between those young people and key decision makers in Irish Education.

The ACCS Student Voice Journal, produced in collaboration with the NCCA is an attempt to provide a snapshot of where we are in the process, and a roadmap detailing where we came from and where we progress to.

Download the ACCS Student Voice Journal here