Director of School Improvement

Student Voice 2019

The Victorian Student Representative Council (VicSRC) published a resource titled Student Voice and the Education State.

The forward, from the State Minister for Education the Honorary James Merlino, stated: A key part of the Education State vision is that students have a say and a legitimate voice in how the education system works for them. This states the importance of student voice in our State of Victoria. Consequently, it is imperative for schools to involve students in decision making processes and collectively influence outcomes for their school.

At South Oakleigh College we are currently in the process of electing the SRC for 2020, as well as analysing results from the students Attitudes to School Survey (AToSS) and the Parent Opinion Survey (POS). 

This data will inform us regarding how the school is operating and what processes and initiatives need to be updated or removed to improve the school and make it more responsive to the needs of our students and families.  

The 2019 AToSS survey results considered a range of areas, including: effective teaching time, learning confidence and school connectedness.

Highlights include:

•  70% of students agree with the statement my teachers give me feedback about my work
•  72% of students agree with the statement my teachers give extra help when students need it

These are relatively high numbers and clearly areas where the school does well, but there is always room for improvement.

In order to consider how to learn from these strengths we gathered a random sample of students to seek further feedback.

Students were asked to discuss such issues as:

• What does feedback mean to them?
• What sort of feedback had they received from their teachers?

This data will enable us to determine the most effective feedback for students and the school can then train teachers to use it consistently and effectively.

The responses from this focus group will be collated over the next months and discussions had among the school leadership team, learning specialists and with the SRC to ensure student voice is also core to this review process.

This will then form part of our 2020 (and beyond) Annual Implementation Plan (AIP), as we continue to value and respond to student voice.

 Mr Juan Ospina