Delivering the experience strand | Secondary school

Key topics

• Democratic rights, values and responsibilities.
• Dialogue, deliberation and robust and respectful debate.
• Youth voice, representation, and leadership.
• Collective and participatory decision-making.

Why the Experience strand matters in secondary schools

A secondary school that has a strong democratic culture with opportunities for youth voice and discussion allows learners to explore and experience democratic issues and practices.

If we want learners to be prepared for democratic life, they must first experience and practice those skills in a safe space. Learners should have opportunities to understand principles of democratic life, while also feeling secure to take risks.

Through class, year and school council elections, learners should have the opportunity to contribute to decision-making within their school. The challenge for school leaders is to make curriculum time available for learner representatives and designated staff to meet regularly, take action on school issues and demonstrate outcomes.

Additionally, opportunities to practice democratic skills should be authentic and not tokenistic. It is not democracy if learners are not being given real choices that determine real outcomes. Building a democratic school culture requires more than just having a school council. Instead, learner voice must be a consistent and valued contribution to school decisions when appropriate. While this can be challenging, we cannot expect young people to be prepared for living in democracy without first giving them opportunities to practice existing in a democracy.

One challenge to creating a real democratic culture is truly involving and valuing all contributions, and not just those of the most engaged learners. To address this concern:

• Start by ensuring that all staff are ready and supportive of building a democratic culture. This requires a whole school effort, and not just a few teachers advocating for centering learner voices.
• Decide on a few meaningful ways that learners can make their voices heard. Then provide multiple ways for them to participate.
• Have clear processes for learners to share their ideas, concerns, and successes.
• Be transparent with learners about what can, and cannot be done to address a concern.

My approach

This strand offers an opportunity to blend the practice of democratic values such as freedom of expression, tolerance for different opinions while encouraging the development of collaborative problem-solving skills to apply to issues that matter to learners. This can be achieved through having multi-perspective learner dialogue on local, national and even global issues.

Democratic culture and youth voice needs to be built into the fabric of the overall school culture. This begins with school leaders setting  aside time for whole school elections or school councils and for those elected to learner leadership positions to have formal meetings and have their value and efforts recognised at a senior level. Actions and achievements should be communicated  to all learners within the school.

Teachers also play a key role in making this successful. Teachers should find tangible and specific ways to include learners in the decision making process. This could involve letting learners choose a topic or issue to discuss either through deliberation or voting, or involving them in decisions about class trips. No matter what decisions ensure they are real decisions with real consequences.

If you only do one thing…

Provide authentic opportunities for learners to express themselves about the policies and ideas they care about. Encourage them to take risks and learn more. Provide guidance when needed, and act on student concern or suggestion when applicable and appropriate.

Where this fits into the curriculum

• Tutor time -  Build in opportunities for learners to practice using their voice and contribute to the overall school culture.
• Citizenship or PSHE lessons - Connect these skills back to citizenship while preparing learners for democratic life.
• Assemblies - invite guest speakers from local,national or global charities to talk about their work and answer questions from learners.
• History - discussions about how people in the past got involved with decision-making compared to today.
• School council - Provide learners with authentic opportunities to participate in decision making processes.

Key resources

If you have 30 minutes or less…

• Change your local area, The Electoral Commission and Simple Politics - This resource will support learners to apply what they have learned about democratic structures and the role of elected representatives to think about their local area and how it can be improved.

1 hour…

• Choices, choices, The Electoral Commission and Simple Politics - Use this resource, along with the ‘Change your local area’ resource above to encourage learners to critically reflect and work collaboratively to solve problems and make decisions in a democracy.

1-3 hours… 

• Mapping our community, The Politics Project - You can build on the activities above by encouraging learners to consider how they would like to make improvements in their area. This resource gets learners to work together to create a map of their community / area, highlighting positive features and parts/things which are negative or they would like to improve.
• Following learner feedback, this activity could be developed further to include a ‘school / community action plan’ for development and/or to highlight to the school council.

4-6 hours…

• Run a referendum, The Electoral Commission - These resources support schools to run a meaningful referendum or issue-based vote, helping learners understand how they can influence decision-making and have their voice heard through voting. These resources contain a lesson tailored to each of the four home nations. It can be delivered in one lesson or across a number of lessons. Through the referendum, learners will decide on issues important to them, advocate and campaign for these issues, and take part in a vote, building their confidence to participate in democratic decision-making.

6 hours plus…

• How can citizens bring about change? Oak National Academy - These Key stage 3 resources explain to learners the role of citizens and groups in shaping and improving communities. For Key stage 4 learners, use How can politicians involve citizens in direct decision making? Oak National Academy.
• For extension work on this strand, learners could vote on and decide on an issue they would like to know more about. Teachers could devise an enquiry / debate question based on the issue and divide learners into two groups asking them to research and find evidence to present in a class debate on the issue. Issues / debate topics can change on a weekly basis.

Considerations for learners with additional needs

• Provide learners with multiple methods to participate. This could be via secret ballot, participating in school focus groups or peer facilitated small group discussions.
• Have consistent and repetitive routines. Learners should know who they can talk to about their ideas, or what other pathways exist to get involved.
• Provide surveys or ballots that are supported with simple and direct language, and where applicable images.
• Provide opportunities for processing and reflection. Some learners may feel disappointed or let down by democratic decisions. That is to be expected, and it is good for learners to experience that in a sheltered environment. Discuss what they could do to influence future decisions and how to process feelings of disappointment.