Smart School Councils

The Smart School Councils' mission is to provide young people with the opportunity to debate and use their voice. Smart School Councils feel it’s more important than ever for young people to create change in their school and community to build a positive and inclusive democratic future together. All pupils take part in regular, pupil-led class meetings, to build oracy and debate skills for all. Members have access to over 2000 previous debate topics, as well as new questions uploaded to the software each week, by the team of experienced teachers. They also have the opportunity to design their own, personalised school-based debate questions.

A group of students run the programme as a vehicle for student voice, so it is important that they are aware of their Listening skills. We offer a launch call to these student leaders, which schools on our premium package can opt-in for. During this live launch we discuss and highlight the Listening skills needed to be effective in this role and ensure opportunity is given for the students to reflect and self-assess. The lead teacher is also asked to complete a more formal assessment of the students prior to the launch and then three months after to show development in these skills.