School Councils Go Digital
School councils and teachers from across Pembrokeshire came together for three exciting conference days at Bluestone last week.
At the conferences, entitled Participating Through The Pembrokeshire Portal, students learnt new ways of using the Pembrokeshire Portal to communicate about important school council business with the rest of their school.
The Pembrokeshire Portal is a web-based resource for all schools in the county and all pupils are registered members, which is currently used for communication and collaboration activities within their school and with other schools across the borough.
Councillor Huw George, cabinet member for children and young people, will be attending the conferences. "The Pembrokeshire Portal is a fantastic resource for schools", he said. "The ICT team have produced a wonderfully innovative set of new tools for pupils to use to communicate with each other and improve the way school councils work.
"In the modern world, young people use blogs and other online tools to communicate socially. The design of these new communication tools on the portal is so up to date, I’m sure that pupils will find them attractive to use and really useful. I look forward to hearing that schools have used this amazing opportunity to widen participation in decision-making."
Tools the school council members and teachers learnt to use included an online suggestion box, where pupils will be able to make suggestions for topics that they feel the school council should be discussing. A blogging facility will allow school council members to post details of current activities, meetings, photos etc, and agendas, minutes and action plans from school council meetings will be posted on the portal for all pupils to see.
Advisory Teacher for Safeguarding, Kathy Young-Powell, who organised the conferences, stated, "The aim of these conferences is to get more pupils participating in discussions and influencing important decisions about issues that affect them in their schools."
