Participation and decision making
'Fostering active and responsible citizens contributes to the process of developing a healthy and vibrant culture of democratic participation.'
'Education for Citizenship in Scotland', Learning and Teaching Scotland, 2002
Pupil participation lies at the heart of learning 'citizenship through experience'. Nearly all Scottish schools now have pupil councils or other means of consulting with pupils, which reflects the impact of international agreements and recent Scottish legislation.
Children's rights
The Standards in Scotland's Schools, etc. Act 2000
For the first time children and young people are given rights in education. The Act places a new duty on schools to involve pupils in the preparation of the school development plan, and decisions concerning the everyday running of their school.
Advice for education practitioners
Children in Scotland: promoting participation and decision-making
A wealth of information on consultations, legislation, projects, links and publications to promote participation by children and young people in decision making. It has excellent participation resources for young people with disabilities.
Save the Children Scotland
Word file: Young people's rights in education (60 KB)
Information produced by Save the Children on young people's rights to education and to participate in that education. Also gives details of publications available to order.
Help Yourselves!
Website by Save the Children encouraging young people and those working with young people to get involved in their communities and speak out on issues that affect them. Lots of information, ideas and helpful support on developing local projects. Includes funding ideas, resources and some great success stories.
The Trojan Project
The Trojan Project offers young people across Scotland the chance to give their views on issues on which the Scottish Government is making policies, particularly related to school. It is funded by the Support for Learning Division of the Scottish Government Schools Directorate and aims to tackle some of the issues surrounding young people's consultation and participation with the Scottish Government. Many of the young people taking part in the project are not currently in mainstream educational provision.
The project works by posing a series of questions to groups of young people who sign up to the project. Their views are relayed to the Government and back to them via the Trojan Project website. It is a web-based project; all the questions, responses and progress of the initiative are detailed on the website. The Trojan Project also produces some paper-based reports on the responses.
School Councils UK
Primary Council Toolkit
Step-by-step guide to setting up an effective pupil council.
Secondary Council Toolkit
Session plans and advice on running meetings and creating an ethos of participation.
Pupil Council information
The Health Promoting Schools website provides an excellent fact file for children giving information about pupil councils: what they are, what happens at a meeting and what benefits a pupil council provides.
Pupil Voice and Citizenship Education
This report, produced by Jean Rudduck of Cambridge University for the QCA's Citizenship and PSHE Team, is about ways of eliciting pupils' perspectives that teachers could make use of in the context of citizenship education.
Consulting with young people
Learning and Teaching Scotland's young people's consultation on education for citizenship
It is not easy to set up and sustain active pupil councils and there are lots of challenges to be met, not least getting the young people on board. There is some evidence that a significant proportion of young people remain doubtful about the effectiveness of their pupil council.