Beliefs About School

Students may be able to provide further insight into areas for improvement.  

• Students are able to provide further insight into areas for improvement.

• Convene groups of students for conversations, or meet with existing groups or clubs.

• Consider using a “Notice and Wonder” approach.

• Why do they think students might feel that way? Why might they feel that way? What could be done collectively to make things better for everyone?

Key points to consider:

• Meeting with groups of students: 

  • cohorts as outlined in Student Success Survey, while being conscious to not put any marginalized folks in any harm or danger.

  • Youth led advisory committee can offer strong and true perspectives

• Give students choices of interacting with data:

  • Confidentiality communicated.

  • An opportunity to communicate feedback.

  • An anonymous way of providing feedback.

• If your school plans to take action in response to the survey results, share your plan with your students and support them to get involved!

Reference: MTSS Behaviour Framework

• Educators can co-create community responsibilities with students by drawing on the 4 Rs. 

• Pre-teach the 4 Rs (Respect, Responsibility, Relationship, Reciprocity). Encourage students to consider examples from their own experience. 

• Engage students in small groups. Ask the students to identify any community responsibilities, important to them and what they need to cooperate with these responsibilities. Also, inquire what their expectations are of school staff. 

• To ensure authentic feedback, meet student needs for communication (i.e. some students may feel safer responding individually or in smaller groups with an LST, SSW, CYCP, T.A., etc.)

• Encourage each group to share back the responsibilities they brainstormed. After each group shares, pull out themes to create the classroom community responsibilities. 

• Using the community responsibilities, engage the groups to determine what the expectations will “look like” in their classroom. Consider and validate diverse expressions and values, across cultures. 

• Engage a representative group of students through leadership opportunities in the school communities. By establishing a leadership team, students can be prepared and supported to offer guidance and advice when decisions arise and take action in response to the needs of the school community.

• School Advisory Councils are a great place to bring unique and differing perspectives together. Work to diversify member and create a culture of sharing and understanding. 

• Support students as members and create space for them to meaningfully contribute to meetings. Find ways for your students to share what is going on in your SAC meetings back with their peers.

• Reduce barriers for participation in the SAC through carpooling or offering opportunities to participate remotely.

• Support and encourage your SAC members to reach out to other school community members and prioritize feedback from marginalized voices.

• Youth demonstrated their ability to identify unique and effective solutions to problems at school. 

• Whether they were connecting students through audiovisual projects, creating opportunities for risky play with skateboard clubs, or creating spaces to share culture and be vulnerable through a safe space wigwam, students have the skills and understanding to lead projects at your school. 

• By supporting students to understand what is going on at their school and then taking time to identify and prioritise solutions you can have great impact while empowering youth as changemakers. 

• These projects can be done with little to no budget, but can have great impact when funds are found to support them: Positive Noise grants, SAC funds, and SSP funds are great places to start.

• Students are more likely to engage and participate when they have agency and a sense of influence over what you are doing.

• Create meaningful opportunities for student decision making. Intramurals, breakfast programs, extracurricular activities, and school leadership are all great places to engage students in decision making. 

• You can also find ways of doing this in your classroom, give your Youth Engagement Coordinator a call for more ideas.

• For students to be involved, they need to know what is going on. If you are starting new programs or taking steps to affect change in your school let them know what you are doing and tell them how they informed those decisions.

• It is particularly important to communicate with students after you have engaged them. If you have asked students for their input or if they have participated in a program or project - let them know how things went. Share the results and tell them what your going to do next.

• Share and celebrate what is going on in your community. Encourage school community members to share their stories and encourage your students and staff to contribute to meaningful community development when opportunities arise. 

• Be a bridge between your students and their community. Encourage service and connection by promoting community events, services, and programs.

• Find creative ways to get input from students. Students will have variety of different needs and comfort levels when asked to share their ideas or feelings. By providing differing opportunites to participate we can better support all students to participate. 

• In addition to traditional methods of engaging youth find fun ways where students can provide feedback without needing to use their voice. One example of this is an activity called vote with your body.

• Vote with your body :

  • Create a scale from 0 to 10 in a physical space (i.e. the wall to the left is 0 or disagree and the wall to the right is 10 or agree)

  • Pose a question and ask participants to stand in the place on the scale that best represents their answer (i.e. I think school is fun – move your body to the place on the scale if the left wall is disagree and the right wall is agree).

  • When you can see how people respond you can ask certain people to share their answer.