Class Council: Discovering how a democratic society works
How?
In this section, you will find hands-on materials. These open educational resources (OER) can support your way towards implementing an efficient and fruitful students‘ council.
Concretely, you will find:
A document with a description of the different roles and a template for implementing them in your class. you can print the template and plastify it in order to fill it afterwards with the names of your students for the different roles.
The roles within the class council are essential to make it work. The teacher accompanies the process but does not lead it. He/she helps students to better communicate, express their opinions and emotions, and make solid decisions. The roles are changed frequently, for example at the beginning of each week.
The main roles are: president, secretary and time keeper. Other roles can be added to this list if needed. The students’ roles can help in general for the daily class life organization; we encourage you to listen to students’ suggestions and class’ needs.
A document with a functioning guide, a step by step guide for the council. Especially for the first class councils, the teacher can remind the students of the main issues and objectives of it by making it clear why the students are gathered. Afterwards, it will be up to the president to manage the council. The steps that you will find in the document are there to help you to implement the council but can be adapted if needed.
A document with the different settings for the council. This document will help you to keep in mind the main information about the class council settings: composition, place, time, periodicity, agenda, operating rules, the teacher’s role. It comes with a ready-to-print template for the agenda, with some space for the south outs, some for the propositions and some for the problems.