As part of an audit at a large secondary school in the Midlands, Coady Consultants carried out an anonymous survey of a randomly selected group of pupils-approx 10% of the whole school.
This survey covered aspects relating to teaching and learning, behaviour, attendance/truancy, personal safety for the individual and their property in/around the school, bullying, school lunches, awareness of school policies and procedures, awareness of School Council, involvement (current and past) in school activities and decision making.
This survey was used to allow the newly appointed Head Teacher to gain an overview of learners feelings very quickly and visible progress was made in a very short space of time.
Senior members of staff became more "visible" around the school and reported instances of bullying were reduced.
Monitoring was set up to identify the extent of internal truancy.
A Working Party was set up to monitor attendance and a full time Attendance Officer was brought into post to ensure the improvements made to Attendance were maintained.
Parents/carers were informed in writing of the efforts being made and the progress to date.
The survey was repeated after 7 months and there was a dramatic improvement in the opinions of the learners towards their school.
We have repeated similar "Learner Voices" exercises following requests from our clients: the information has been used to target activities, including individual support and curriculum based interventions to whole-school issues.
06 July 2009
