Spring Term 2021 - In Review
We’ve taken the slight lull that comes with Easter Break to take time to reflect on all things Spring Term - plus put together some really exciting developments and updates for Summer Term.
Most of Spring Term - as everyone will remember - was spent in lockdown 🔒
Schools returned from the Christmas Holidays for a day, then were promptly closed and instructed to return to home learning. While definitely a bit more ready for it than the last time this happened, it was still a big adjustment to schools, teachers, parents, and young people to return to ‘learning from home.’
So while it was a far-cry from what we would consider a traditional Spring Term - we wanted to take some time to talk about the things that happened at Smart School Councils over the past four months.
With lockdown being reinstated at the beginning of the term, Home Debate Club really took off! Over the course of the term over 45,000 young people and their families participated in Home Debate Club. We held 13 Home Debate Clubs to help keep pupil voice strong over the term - and dozens of schools got involved every week, either as a class activity or an activity to be done with parents and carers.
Once schools returned to in-person learning in March, over 185 Class Meetings were set up in March! It was great to see schools return to using the Class Meeting Tool - especially as they focused their questions on student wellbeing!
Lockdown didn’t stop new members from joining the Smart School Council community either - we welcomed 30 new schools over lockdown and can’t wait to see what they do with pupil voice while on the programme.
Back to Home Debate Club - we held two amazing partnership debates with The National Gallery and Empathy Week! These debates were great as they introduced debaters to new ideas, and asked them to thoughtfully reflect on their communities and their attitudes to other.
We started on our new project with Volunteering Matters - Team London Young Ambassadors! This project works with students in AP to enable them to lead real change.
We also got to work with two lovely interns from the University of Notre Dame - Jack and Meghan - who helped support us through the beginning of the term as part of the ‘virtual study’ programme in London.
As Spring Term focused heavily on Home Debate Club - we wanted to share some of our favourite Home Debate Clubs of the term! A project that was born out of the first lockdown, Home Debate Club has seen various iterations - from being a co-presented live debate done on Wednesdays, to a single presenter and a debate that is live for a whole week - and it’s something that we are extremely proud to continue to produce each week.
It was tough to narrow down our top debates of Spring Term Home Debate Clubs - but here they are 😊
Our favourite thing about Home Debate Club is being able to read the reasonings young people submit with their debates. Each debate group is given the option to provide why a certain debate option won in their debate, and each week when we go over the hundreds of submissions we are blown away about the thought and effort that are put into their arguments.
We’ve pulled a few of the reasonings that really stuck with us:
Debate : Should you show everyone empathy?
“We should show empathy to all people no matter what. Even if they made a mistake or brought it upon themselves, everyone deserves to feel worthy and like they aren’t alone.”
Debate: Is the coronavirus and the pandemic being focused on too much?
“Me and my mum agreed that yes, the pandemic has been focused on too much because when you turn on the news it’s full of sad updates all the time. We all know how serious the pandemic is but they always focus on the number of deaths or infections, rather than something positive like stories from people who survived or number of vaccinations. And there’s so much else going on in the world right now I should know more about!”
Debate: Should everyone be forced to have a coronavirus vaccine?
“Yes because of the utility principle - greatest happiness for the greatest number.”
When schools reopened to in-person learning in March, our member schools started setting up Class Meetings in a storm! Plenty of the Class Meetings that were set up were very reflective on the general situation of the world, asking students to discuss how they felt about the past months being at home and to think about what can be done to improve things moving forward.
185 Class Meetings were set up before the Easter Holidays and we just had to share with you some of our favourites! These particular Class Meetings stuck out to us because of their reflective nature and the emphasis they put on understanding and helping others.
Our favourite Spring Term Class Meeting Questions:
If the year 2020 was an animal, which animal would it be? - British International School Budapest
What can we do to support our local community during these difficult times? - Beamont Primary School
Do we do enough as a school to celebrate or learn about your (or your classmates') country's festivals and special days? - British International School Budapest
Do pupils in Sacred Heart have a say in decision making? - Sacred Heart RC Primary School
How supported did you feel the school was with home learning? - Woodheys Primary School
We’ve got lots of exciting things coming up this Summer Term.
We spent our Easter Break updating the Class Meeting Tool! With tons of new features meant to make it quicker, simpler, and easier for our members to set up Class Meetings, plus embed videos, we’re hoping for a great term of plenty of Class Meetings!
We also have welcomed on our new Chair of Trustees - Sam Hockman! (You can read our feature on him here.) Sam is bringing tons of experience to our Board and will be working closely with Greg and the Smart School Councils team to continue growing and supporting pupil voice.
We’ve also got some BIG things in the work with Home Debate Club - which we can’t wait to share once they’re ready! So prepare yourselves 😊
And while all of the above mentioned things are wonderful to look forward to, perhaps the thing we - and schools across the UK - are looking forward to the most, is a term un-interrupted by lockdowns. It’s not lost on anyone just how trying the past four months have been on young people, and we’re ready to help schools support them, and their voices, in school again.
So here’s to Summer Term!