Best Practice: Escola Secundária de Francisco Rodrigues Lobo

1. YOUTH PARLIAMENT, 2007

Preparation: January, February, March
20th March: Committee Work
22nd March: General Assembly

100 pupils (4 classes, ages 15-17) involved
Theme: "Feeling Well at School"
Pupils are given a 'problematic issue' to be studied; they organize themselves in 'committees' to prepare the topic, making research (press, internet, creating and applying questionnaires and treating the data, analysing 'study cases', etc).
A date for the YP to take place is planned: one session for the "Committee Work" and another for the "General Assembly"; after discussing the subject they write a 'proposal of motion' that is delivered to all the other 'Committees' beforehand, so that they can know its contents and are able to debate it in the General Assembly.

This year, 9 Committees worked on 9 'problematic issues'all of them aiming at "Feeling Well at School".

1. Committee for Non-Discrimination:" School is not yet a place where everybody feels well!"
2. Committee for Non-Violence: "Bullying is not a problem at our school"
3. Committee for Immigration: "Integration of Migrant pupils in our School"
4. Committee for the Environment: "Ours is not yet a clean school. Who is to blame?"
5. Committee for Equality: "Pupils with special needs (physical or mental) have the right not to be discriminated"
6. Committee for Health and Food: "Youngsters obesity is a growing problem"
7. Committee for Sexual Education:" Most youngsters cannot deal with their sexuality. It is up to School to provide support.
8. Committee for Education: "School must promote everyone's success!"
9. Committee for Democracy: "Pupils don't participate actively in school life"

Linked to the curriculum?
Yes, this activity is related to general objectives of the subject History. It is a strategy that allows pupils to put into practice what they learn about participative democracy.

Evaluation
What went well? Why?

Pupils evaluate this experience as very positive. It is a unique opportunity to debate subjects of their own interest that cannot be treated in classrooms, making their own reflections, sharing points of view and proposing solutions that will be taken to the Pedagogical Council where they have a representative.

What can be improved? Why and how?
teachers must dedicate more time to pupils before the General Assemble to talk about the written 'proposals for motions', to clarify and give information that students do not possess so that the debate in General Assembly may be more profitable and misleading reasoning may be prevented.
Information about the original materials
Logistic materials: parliamentary procedure (general rules, setting debate time, roles, voting procedure, etc), list of phrases to help build the Resolutions, example of a Resolution, document for writing amendments, etc)
(these materials were translated into Portuguese, being adapted by Clube Europeu coordinators to the school reality but the originals can be found in the EYP site in English.

Guidelines to stimulate the discussion on the 'problematic issue' during Work in Committees
approved Proposals for Motions/Resolutions, in this YP, 2007 "Feeling Well at school"
these material are in Portuguese, but it is our intention to translate them into English and to publish in the Clube Europeu website or in schooljournals.

2. Case study: is Rodrigues Lobo a bullying free school?

is Rodrigues Lobo a bullying free school?
Identification and characterization of bullying behaviours at school

2nd and 3rd terms
6 classes (16 to 18 year-old pupils)
group of 9 European Club members

1. Investigation:
  1.1. a questionnaire was devised to find out whether the problem of bullying was felt at a secondary school like ours attended by older pupils - the 3 years before going into further education - or only when they were younger kids attending the 9 years of basic education.

  1.2. an open question format was handed out to the same pupils that answered the questionnaires, so that they could describe situations of bullying watched, inflicted or suffered by the pupils themselves.

Quesstionnaire. Open Format
Questionnaire. Bullying

  1.3. data processing - the co-ordinators of the Clube Europeu treated the data and the results were given to a group of pupils to be analysed and discussed and to arrive at some suggestions to minimize the problem.

Data processed from questionnaire



2. Action: those pupils constituted a Commission wrote a Resolution to be debated at the Youth Parliament; after being approved it was given to their representative at the Pedagogical Council, where all sectors of the School Community have a seat.
3. Follow up: 3rd term: pupils intend to write "A code of behaviour - class commitment" to be accepted, signed and posted on each classroom wall.
A code of behaviour - a class commitment

Evaluation
The process allowed us to confirm that ours is not a bullying free school. Pupils told that nothing of the kind had ever been asked to them and that this was the only opportunity to talk about situations that they would silence if not asked in this anonymous way
To be improved: to apply the questionnaire not only to 100 pupils through class teachers to apply it to all classes to give all the pupils the opportunity to express their worries and together try to arrive at a way of improving the situation.
Is this best practice transferable to other schools?

It would be interesting to apply the questionnaire to partner schools to compare results and ways of improving the situation (to learn from each other)

3. Litter project (year two)

Click here to read the Litter project (year two)