: I See My Voice: Capturing pupil perspectives Bridging the gap between the lived experience and the children’s ability to recall.

“So what did you learn about in school today?”
“…”

What a ringing endorsement for a hard day’s work! Not a fair reflection of a productive school day packed with learning.

This response is often put down to a child’s mind switching from work- to play-mode after a busy day’s learning. But it does give pause for us to consider if we have done all we can to embed the high-quality discussions we’ve enjoyed together.

The problem
As a school, we found ourselves in this situation. One of our priorities is doing all we can to ensure that the children understand they have a voice, and that they can use this voice to create a better future for themselves, other people and the world they live in. To help us achieve this, a unique feature of Alexandra Park Primary is our tri-weekly class forums.

These are key moments in our school week, and dropping into any class, you would hear fantastic pupil-led conversation, linked to our weekly assembly theme and peppered with British Values. Class forum discussions have led to real change within our community; a clear highlight of school life for all stakeholders.

Yet when we conducted pupil voice research with our KS2 pupils, we found they were unable to effectively communicate why class forums were important, and what content had been covered. There was a clear disconnect between the lived experience and the children’s ability to recall.

The solution
Reflecting on this gap, we recognised the need to document this key learning, as we would other areas of the curriculum. The previous academic year had already seen the introduction of e‑floorbooks for our Aspire Programme (trips, events and visitors) which had greatly eased the collation of pupil voice, as well as positively impacting retrieval over time.

Adapting this approach, we used a year group to trial a class forum e‑book, providing a more formal structure to discussions and giving a designated space for recording pupil responses. This flexible format allowed for child-driven conversations to take centre stage, and required minimal additional preparation time for staff.

The simple act of writing a child’s response word-for-word, followed by their name in brackets, had an immediate effect on pupil engagement. They were desperate for their thoughts to be immortalised in the e‑book. But more than this, they were becoming increasingly collaborative in their discussions: building and challenging each other’s opinions with confidence, developing high standards of oracy with little teacher input. These findings are in line with the DFE’sListening to and involving children and young peoplereport (2014):

Young people involved in participative work benefit in a range of different ways. Increased confidence, self-respect, competence and an improved sense of responsibility have all been reported by young people who contribute in school. Schools also report increased motivation and engagement with learning.

We then followed the EEF’S updated A School’s Guide to Implementation(2024) to roll this approach out to the rest of the school as part of our September INSET.

Staff were engaged through initial discussions, working together to define class forums and sharing expertise from personal experiences. They were then presented with concise and purposeful steps on how to implement agreed change. This united staff with a shared approach across all year groups. Time was given to reflect on progress made through drop-ins to both observe and be observed, with feedback provided through team meetings.

Final reflections
This academic year, class forums feel refreshed and we continue to see the benefits of this research project through flourishing, thoughtful discussions. It has also prompted us to ask, ​“Where else could we prioritise children’s verbal responses?” as we make oracy a school development priority.

At the end of our school day, racing to the local skate park might still trump in-depth conversations about learning, but we know every child has seen their voice, and it is valued.