103 | Q1 2021 Nov20172 Hearing a Generation An exemplary business that is pioneering a way for students voices to be heard across the UK, VotesforSchools is a remote voting and educational resources tool. Having gained popularity over its many successful years of work, it has created an enviable operational model for improving schools on a national level. Find out why this business is London’s Leading Education Company, 2021. VotesforSchools is an online platform application that gives students in educational facilities across the UK a voice. In this way, it lets them have a say in the issues that affect them and their schools, empowering them to become vocal community members in a way that will encourage them to continue using their voice into adulthood. It generates an atmosphere of social responsibility that inevitably permeates every aspect of school life and consequentially improves the internal culture of the institutes it works within. VotesforSchools has become an award-winning service because of this, and it also facilitates the instilling of SMSC, British Values, and Prevent across educational institutes. It works with many influential bodies operating at a national level in order to better and bolster its services, too; from Let’s Talk About It and The Wow Show to Oak National Academy, the Metropolitan Police, Unicef, Welsh Parliament, and Educate Against Hate. The business of VotesforSchools works with each of these bodies and many, many more, allowing it to offer a truly expansive and well-researched service that is both knowledgeable and respectful of the material. VotesforSchools’ propulsion into notoriety and its reputation for excellence has also secured its work with the media, celebrities, and large non-profit organisations that respond to students personally. This is a huge pillar of VotesforSchools work as it stands, as it is a tangible way that students can be shown that they are making a difference. At the time of writing, it works within 810 schools, with 510273 pupils, and 7889 teachers – and this number is ever-growing, along with the voice and reach of this powerful movement. Its platform works from a simple three-step process. In the initial stage, the business provides its schools with weekly zero-prep packaged programmes for teachers and educators, working across Primary, Secondary, and College institutions. These are created by teachers themselves, and include, firstly, a whole school assembly and tutor time session, as well as a full introductory lesson. In this way, the entire school gets both a macro scale onboarding and a more personable one that encourages students to truly engage with the process, allowing teachers to ensure each student understands it. It also develops for inclusion a curriculum map that shows a visual breakdown of the weekly coverage of SMSC, British Values, and Prevent, giving cross-curricular planning ideas and a parent information sheet as a part of this. Furthermore, it offers the onboarding for the use of its online voting platform; this is what gives its students the stage they need to be heard. Step 2 of the process involves its dedicated team of expert teachers, all of whom are incredibly adept in their areas, creating downloadable lessons. These lesson plans are where the social responsibility aspect of its work really comes in to play, as they address the biggest issues for children and young people in the world today. It understands that school syllabuses are strict and teachers time is a precious resource due to heavy workloads and difficult hours during term time. Therefore, its services take away the pressure on the teacher to be the expert in these current affairs topics. It does all the research for them, creating easy to understand and easy to present resources that give teachers all the necessary tools for in depth and interesting lessons without the added stress. It also allows the teachers to still be the ones to bring this information to students, cultivating a classroom atmosphere of mutual learning and exploration. In this way, its resources provide educators with workload help and a hook into deeper discussions with students. This is something that VotesforSchools takes great pride in regarding its work; it cultivates a safe space where students and teachers can have potentially challenging conversations about anything from activism to knife crime. The benefit of this lies in the development of every person in the discussion as people – the students may even end up teaching the educators something, as each person in the classroom brings a new perspective to the issues at hand. The third step is the vote. This takes place after the lesson, and when the students are thoroughly informed about the issue. From here, the platform allows educators to see how students voted, how their votes compare to the national picture, and the breakdowns of voter profiles in terms of age group and gender. Its annual subscription gives 40 lessons packs per annum, access for all teachers in the school, and data breakdowns on the platform. You can also go to its website to see its multitude of exemplary resources. Company: VotesforSchools Contact: Kate Harris Email :
[email protected] Website: https://www.votesforschools.com