Scottish authorities will no longer be legally obligated to appoint unelected religious representatives to school boards. Instead, elected councillors will be appointed by a vote of the full council.
All state-funded secondary schools will be an elected students council, and an elected student president. The student president will represent students on local school accountability boards.
@PaulJRobinson - about 10 years ago
I'm not quite clear on the role/powers/responsibility that a Student Council would have within a school. What would their relationship be with the Board of Governors?
@philipjohn - about 10 years ago
I'd hope that the student president would have an equal place on the governing board. S/he would take decisions/questions/requests from the student council to the Board of Governors.
This seems reasonable. 👍
In related news, there was a lot of feedback at LOPO the other night that getting this collaborative manifesto idea into schools would be a good idea as a way of encouraging participation.
@PaulJRobinson - about 10 years ago
The Student Governor would need to operate on same rules as Staff Governors: exclusion from certain confidential 'Part II' agenda items when the Board sits in closed session at the end: discussions on matters of child protection; sensitive staffing matters eg grievances or disciplinary items.
I believe most Governing Bodies allow (or if they have any sense they should) any parent/staff/student to sit and observe their meetings except for the closed session items mentioned above. So I have no problem with them being a part of the board as a voting member. I think it should be restricted to over 16 year olds though.
@philipjohn - almost 10 years ago
Are you in general agreement on this one then @PaulJRobinson ? I was thinking the President should probably be a key stage 4 (yrs 10 & 11) so could add that in?
@PaulJRobinson - almost 10 years ago
Yeah great, I think it would need to be a KS 4 student as you suggest. Is a "School Accountability Board" the same as a Governing Body? I'm not familiar with that term. If not, that would mean, in your current wording of the PR, that the Student President wouldn't be sitting on the Governing Body?
Scottish authorities will no longer be legally obligated to appoint unelected religious representatives to school boards. Instead, elected councillors will be appointed by a vote of the full council.
All state secondary schools will have an elected students council, and student president. The student president, who will need to be at key stage 4, will represent students on the board of governors.
@PaulJRobinson - almost 10 years ago
Excellent - as I say I think they would need to be excluded from staff-sensitive (disciplinary/grievance) items as well as child protection items that Governors discuss, but other than that I think it's a great suggestion 👍
The OpenPolitics Manifesto
@philipjohn - about 10 years ago
This is flaky, mostly because of the 'local accountability' bit given that many schools have no local accountability any more. However, I like the principle behind the idea of student councils with a president at the table with governers/parents/headteachers so would like to find a way of doing that well.