Element 4.2 Pupil participation and empowerment

• Pupils have meaningful opportunities to participate in school-based decision-making.
• Pupils have opportunities to practise leadership and citizenship skills.

Meaningful pupil participation in school life is increasingly recognised as an important way to help children develop the leadership skills that will serve them best as responsible citizens. In schools across the country, pupils are participating in decision-making that affects a broad range of school life issues including waste management, natural resource conservation, school grounds design and even learning itself. In schools practising an advanced stage of pupil participation, pupils engage in community-based decision-making and action.

• Taking responsibility for ourselves (41 KB), College House Junior School, Nottinghamshire
• Raising awareness and changing attitudes through a whole school ESD curriculum project (362 KB), Holy Trinity Secondary School, Birmingham
• Fighting to breathe (1.5 MB), Lourdes Secondary School, Glasgow
• ESD in Special Schools (1.8 MB), Mayfair House Special School (IMPACT Consortium), Southampton
• Taking the lead in designing and planting a mini-woodland (1.4 MB), McLean Primary School, Dunfermline
• Personal and Social Education and participatory learning (431 KB), Royton and Crompton Secondary School, Lancashire
• Transforming primary school playtimes (433 KB), St Mary’s Primary and Nursery School, Manchester
• Developing positive playtimes through the use of an Infant School Council (320 KB), Tolworth Infants School, Kingston-on-Thames