Sharing Good Practice
Promoting Student
Leadership Roles
By Jenny Murray
O
utstanding teachers have a
wide repertoire of strategies
to engage the learners in
their care. Across Early Years,
Primary School and beyond, I have had
the pleasure of working with teachers
who excel at facilitating student
leadership. Without a doubt, students
who are empowered as leaders are
also empowered as learners. So how
can we create opportunities for our
learners to be leaders? Here’s some
examples of great practice I’ve seen in
recent years:
Early Years
Plan My Day
Classroom management in an Early
Years setting requires flexibility and
endless patience. Some of the most
exciting learning environments I’ve
seen in Early Years have student
leadership at the centre of all learning.
4 year olds self-register and create
their own activity plan for the day
using visual timetables of learning
tasks and then review and reflect them
at the end of the day. The student
led nature of learning in Early Years
promotes leadership as children can
direct themselves towards tasks and
activities.
Helping Hands
Helping Hands is a simple way of
assigning responsibility to young
children and fostering a culture of care
and consideration for the learning
environment. A wall display where
children’s names or photographs
are added to tasks makes student
leadership visual and engaging. I’ve
seen some very proud 4 and 5 year olds
announce their roles as ‘Line Leader’,
‘Paper Police’ or ‘Library Monitor’ to
visitors or peers.
Primary
Ask an expert
By using students as experts in lessons
across the curriculum, we can empower
both the experts and those seeking
help. Some children find peer-to-peer
interaction a more accessible way of
consolidating learning; less daunting
than asking a teacher questions and
often a bit more fun! When children
self-nominate as experts, they assume
a coaching responsibility, which allows
them to be leaders in supporting their
peers. An expert’s cape, badge or
sign on a desk in Primary classrooms
can make this a real honour for the
experts chosen!
Marketplace learning
Collaborative learning activities are
a great opportunity to provide each
student with a leadership role. I
have seen some wonderful Primary
level Humanities lessons take place
where research responsibilities are
shared among a group of learners
to maximise both engagement and
immersion into a topic. For example,
when introducing a unit on Rainforests,
teams of children are given materials
for research a particular sub-topic
and their task is to collaborate and
create a marketplace poster. With
limited time and resources, roles are
assigned and each child is responsible
for something. Success depends on
all children taking on their leadership
role to contribute to their group.
Once posters are complete, 2 of the
team depart to tour the ‘marketplace’,
finding out information from the other
posters, while the remaining team
present to marketplace visitors. At
the end of the session, the information
collectors, feedback to their team to
ensure that everyone is equipped with
the learning needed to begin the new
unit of study.
Middle/Secondary School
Student Council
Perhaps one of the most traditional
means of engaging learners through
leadership, student councils take
varied forms and can provide a
fantastic opportunity for student
leaders to give voice to their peers.
Allowing students to set agendas and
learn how to manage student council
meetings can be fantastic learning
opportunities. Facilitating action and
change through their leadership can
be incredibly empowering.
Buddying/Peer mentoring
Many students thrive on developing
a peer mentoring relationship. I have
seen this work in many ways including
‘Friendship Stops’ staffed by senior
students in a playground, to ensure
younger students have friends to
interact with, reading buddies from
across phases in schools and learning
ladder links where students from each
year level get together once a term to
share highlights of their learning.
Class Time
|
|
Nov - Dec 2015
| 21