School councils and teachers from across Pembrokeshire recently joined together for three exciting conference days at Bluestone.
At the conferences, entitled ‘Participating through the Pembrokeshire Portal’, students learnt new ways of using the Pembrokeshire Portal to communicate about important school council business with the rest of their school.
The Pembrokeshire Portal is a web-based resource for all schools in the county and all pupils are registered members of the Portal, which is currently used for communication and collaboration activities within their school and with other schools across Pembrokeshire.
Councillor Huw George, Cabinet member for Children, Young People, Learning and the Welsh Language, attended the conferences.
“The Pembrokeshire Portal is a fantastic resource for schools”, he said. “The ICT Team have produced a wonderfully innovative set of new tools for pupils to use to communicate with each other and improve the way school councils work.
“In the modern world, young people use blogs and other on-line tools to communicate socially. The design of these new communication tools on the Portal is so up to date, I’m sure that pupils will find them attractive to use and really useful.
“I look forward to hearing that schools have used this amazing opportunity to widen participation in decision-making.”
Tools which the school council members and teachers learnt to use included an on-line suggestion box, where pupils made suggestions for topics they feel the school council should be discussing.
A blogging facility allows school council members to post details of current activities, meetings, and photos.
Agendas, minutes and action plans from school council meetings will also be posted on the portal for all pupils to see.
Advisory Teacher for Safeguarding, Kathy Young-Powell, who organised the conferences, said: “The aim is to get more pupils participating in discussions and influencing important decisions about issues that affect them in their schools.”
The conference was held at the Landsker Suite at Bluestone, Canaston Bridge.
