Student Voice Program
A collaborative approach to amplify the voice of children in planning. Improve positive learning and life outcomes for students with disability.
Generally, a student's Individual Education Plan (IEP) or Personalised Learning and Support Plan (PLaSP) is developed by classroom teachers with some input from parents. Up now, however, conventional planning processes, have not delivered sufficient progress for students.
Plumtree Learning takes an innovative approach to planning with students with special needs: we seek to build novel types of collaborations between home and school to increase student outcomes - and put learning and goal setting right back in the correct place, i.e. in the hands of children and their parents.
Our long term goal: Supporting students to lead the school planning processes about their own learning!
In 2020, we worked with 3 New South Wales schools: results from this project will soon be available.
The Student Voice Program aims to capture the voice of children and young people so that they can make meaningful contributions to their Individual Education Plan (IEP) / Personalised Learning and Support Plan (PLaSP).
The program achieves this by inviting parents, carers and teachers to share, collaborate and learn together in order to create better outcomes for children.
Dace Elletson, Principal, Punchbowl Public School, describes this project here.
It is as simple as A+B+C!
Parents coach their child in order to capture and amplify their voice through a visual goal-setting journey.
This enables the children to contribute meaningfully in their planning process.
Parents and teachers then apply this learning by supporting the child to communicate their interests, strengths, goals and choices so that these may be incorporated into their IEP/PLaSP.
Objectives of pilot project
Objective 1: Capture the voice of children and young people so that their voice could be included in their educational planning to enable meaningful contribution to their IEP/PLSP.
Objective 2: Engage families and teachers in sharing information on how to amplify student voice and learning strategies for coaching students to achieve their goals.
Objective 3: Develop a shared understanding on how families and teachers communicate about progress on goals so that these goals could be achieved collaboratively between students, teachers and families.
The Student Voice framework plans for student voice to first be captured in planning through Pictability [parents and student goals], then:
Goal crafting: Student voice is amplified as parents, educators and students take into account the student's signature strengths as they craft goals
Goal getting: Optimising home and school partnership and collaboration through wellbeing elements identified for each student
Educators and parents use the above framework when they value student voice and understand how the voice of each child with a disability can be found and harnessed.
Partnership between home and school is an essential factor with a team approach being necessary - child, family and school.
This program provides the education and training for educators and families for them to understand these new concepts and challenge their practices to change their behaviour.
Student Voice is a 5 session program facilitated via Zoom that parents and teachers attend together.
Each week, participants attend a 2hr session. A facilitator stays online for another hour to answer questions parents may have.
Parents implement their learning through projects with their child after the Zoom sessions.
Curious about what a Zoom session is or how to connect to Zoom? Click here.
What will each session include?
Session 1
* Identify unique strengths in your child
* Create your vision using our creative Pictability tool
* Prioritise goals
* Take the first steps to help your child find his or her voice
Curious about what session 1 is like? Click here for a sneak preview of Pictability!
Session 2
* Identify your Signature Strengths
* Achieve goals through our Goal 2 Action coaching tool
* Coach your child to identify his or her Signature Strengths and use them to achieve their goals
Session 3
* Nurture effective parent-teacher partnerships
* Include wellbeing practice into your family life
* Coach your child to use wellbeing practices to flourish
Session 4
* Plan future IEPs/PLaSPs to embed your child’s voice
* Embed strength-based learning into everyday teaching and parenting
* Sustain progress by reviewing with your child the tools shared during the Student Voice program
Session 5 [close to the IEP/PLaSP or follow up meeting]
* Review IEP/PLaSP notes to confirm the presence of the student’s voice
* Analyse how the student voice was integrated in planning - to take this knowledge in the future for your child's future planning
* Evaluate the student's achievement of IEP/PLaSP goals
We will offer a booking calendar with a range of times for the zoom sessions to accomodate the busy schedules of parents and teachers.
Sessions will include additional times for Q&A with facilitators.
Questions? Click here for a list of Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ) or access via top tab.
Click here to learn more about the power of including Student Voice in IEPs/PLaSPs, including research that supports its effectiveness.