Pupils and staff at Braes High School are creating new ways of working together to make sure that pupil voices and ideas shape the way their school works. Just before the Covid lock down and school closures, they began to build their existing Pupil Self Evaluation Leaders group by inviting all pupils to join in. 60 pupils representing all year groups volunteered, then in early 2022, 22 pupil volunteers met with David Ironside, depute head teacher, and Gillian McDonald, class teacher at their Pupil Self Evaluation Leaders’ Conference. In order to decide what they felt they wanted to improve in their school, they used a toolkit which other pupils in Braes HS primary schools had developed. Lawson is an S 5 volunteer Pupil Self-Evaluation Leader who took part in this process. He explained that:

“We are at the starting stages of this process, although we have been evaluating the teaching and learning in our own classes already using what we call 5 Step Fridays. Now we are looking at things which could be different in school such as rights, identity… basically we get the voices of pupils themselves. We want to improve our school by looking at it, changing it and moving it forward – not backwards.” Lawson has noticed how the work of pupil self evaluation leaders has changed Braes HS during his 5 years there and said that it has become a better place. He is pleased that loads of junior pupils are now getting involved, and feels over the moon that even though he will leave school and move on, by being a pupil school leader, he has improved his social skills as well as left something of value behind him.

The pupil leaders who were evaluating the toolkit statements about Health and Wellbeing at Braes HS also took time out to share their thinking about their role in this process. They shared their reasons for wanting to be pupil self-evaluation leaders:

1. we care about the progress of our school
2. having this role helps us develop valuable skills which we can add to our skills profile
3. we like representing other pupils’ views and ideas
4. we want to improve the Braes HS experience for future pupils

They had clear thoughts and feelings about having pupil leadership roles:

• Health and well being is really important – both mental and physical well being – this needs to be a priority
• The skills we develop through this voluntary work are valuable now but also when we leave school
• We enjoy having our voices heard
• It helps that senior leaders in our school are part of this – we know we are talking to someone with the power to do something and we can see things happening and changing as a result.

The evaluations completed by the Pupil Self-evaluation Leaders will be shared and developed within their Glow Team. They will then plan how to lead their fellow pupils through a similar process to make sure that the decisions about school improvement in Braes HS are shaped by as many pupil voices as possible. Braes HS also have a Pupil Council who help to make sure that pupil voices and ideas are listened to, and acted upon.