Research Taster

Giving learners the chance to talk about their learning has several benefits.  Pupils increase their confidence in talking about, reflecting on and improving their work. This is especially helpful for pupils who experience difficulty in their learning.  The process can also improve learners’ sense of general self worth and self-confidence, which can boost their achievement. Students from North London found that pupil voice research activities helped them manage their time more effectively and apply the skills they had used both academically and socially.

Your evidence

You can find out what interests your pupils very simply by asking them what they would be interested in learning about, and what sorts of activities they would like to do in school.  You might like to ask them to list these.  Then you could review the list and see which items might fit best with curriculum requirements.

Adapted from Reflective Activity 8.2e at http://www.rtweb.info/ch08/ra8-2e.html

Moving forwards

Teachers often say that the hardest part of helping pupils with learning difficulties is identifying them and determining what the problem is. The next challenge is coming up with an appropriate course of action. Could you use pupil voice to tackle these problems? Perhaps you could encourage pupils to think about learning strategies that work for them?

Find out more

The project website:http://www.consultingpupils.co.uk/

A TLRP Research Brief on pupil voice at:

http://www.tlrp.org/pub/documents/no5_ruddock.pdf

A GTC Research of the Month summary on pupil voice at:

http://www.gtce.org.uk/policyandresearch/research/ROMtopics/pupilvoice/