Voice & Agency

Our behaviour documents do not have a list of dos and don’ts, and we don’t have a ‘three strikes and you’re out’ approach.  This is because we see our students (and ourselves) as global citizens, and our job being to make them even more effective in their citizenship; both for right now and for the future.  

First we recognise that each student interacts with the school environment in their own unique way.  When a student breaches our expectations, it is worth taking time to listen to them.  They may need advice on how to approach the challenges of school life; there may be things we can do to make school life less challenging.

Individual student voice matters, because individual agency - not just obeying rules, but actively trying to improve the community you are in - makes first schools then regions and nations better places to live and work.  

We don’t just wait until something goes wrong before we listen, and expect action to be taken.  It is routine.  There are forums such as the middle school student council and the high school student council.  We also have clubs for the environment or model united nations (MUN) - opportunities for students to engage in important issues.  We arrange town halls so that every student can participate in generative dialogue about the school (see here for an example).

We give time for a teacher to oversee school wide citizenship (see the job description here)