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Abstract

The recent focus on pupil involvement in all aspects of education, including the school improvement agenda, has led to an increasing number of pupils being consulted on various aspects of school life and involved in a range of peer support schemes. Accompanying the proliferation of pupil involvement has been the development of training initiatives to provide pupils with the necessary skills to carry out their new roles. In this article, we focus on how schools can further develop pupil involvement beyond the current level, which generally consists of school councils, peer mentoring projects and supporting student teachers. The article is based on the experience of one secondary school which embraced pupil voice initiatives and then recognized that there was a population of skilled and articulate ‘professional pupils’ in the school. The potential benefits and challenges to the school in harnessing the skills of this group of pupils in future school development are discussed.

Keywords

peer support schemes pupil involvement

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References

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Harnessing the potential of pupils to influence school development

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