Why Choose Us?
See how VotesforSchools has transformed pupil voice in schools, colleges and more.
Barking & Dagenham has one of the highest rates of unemployment and child poverty of all the London boroughs and has struggled with gang and knife crime in the past couple of years. The Council Chief Executive told us they were looking for a cost-effective way of engaging young people in borough issues and for a way of finding out what young people thought.
Launching in all 61 schools in the Schools Improvement Partnership, we set up the voting system so the council could also find out what their young people thought about issues in the area. Since doing so, we have empowered the council to make decisions for young people as a direct result of their feedback.
St Chad’s RCVA and Ramshaw are two small primary schools in Durham. When they came on board in 2016, both schools were rated as ‘Good’ by Ofsted. The Head of both schools, Dominic Brown, was eager to teach pupils about global issues but was finding it hard to cover them with the pressures on the core curriculum.
Dom and his staff now use the VotesforSchools materials both for weekly assemblies and short circle time sessions. Teachers dive into the detail of topics in circle time and then pupils vote together as a whole school in assemblies. Dom asserts that VotesforSchools has been a brilliant tool and has enabled him to educate pupils about really difficult subjects. This was reflected in St Chad’s 2018 Ofsted report.
The questions we get the most about using VotesforSchools in your school or college.
We choose our lesson topics based around what has been happening in the news that week, or key themes around that time of year. If the lesson content raises issues with any pupil we provide sources for further information. We always recommend the government Safeguarding best practice policy is followed.
VotesforSchools can be delivered in Tutor time, Assembly, as a whole school resource, or during a PSHE or Citizenship lesson. There is implementation support from us if needed and lots of sharing of ideas amongst teachers.
Yes!
There is a simple log-in process and we provide clear, easy-to-follow guidance. Our helpline is available during school hours with friendly advice and help if you have any problems: info@votesforschools.com
We understand that all schools have different approaches and access to technology. We have built maximum flexibility into the platform meaning that pupils can vote on laptops, tablets, smart phones or in the school computer suite. We provide a ballot box if a school prefers to vote manually rather than online.
Schools can access the anonymised data specific to their school and also see the data relating to other schools across the country. The VoteData will be sent to the lead teacher in your school.
VotesforSchools takes the issue of data protection and data privacy extremely seriously and adheres to the highest possible standards. Privacy of data is one of the core principles of our company and we will never sell or commercialise data. Pupils have an individualised user log-in so that all data remains anonymous. Data on your school will be private and unique to you and will under no circumstances be shared with anyone else.
The VotesforSchools platform runs for a whole year, regardless of sign-up date with 40 VotePacks per year.
You can sign up by clicking the 'Sign Up' page, email us on info@votesforschools.com, or call us on 07754 862979
VotesforSchools takes data and privacy very seriously. We are fully compliant with the GDPR measures and ensure that any personal data is fully protected.
The personal data we collect on staff is exclusively used for the running of the VotesforSchools programme. We only collect staff emails. We collect zero identifiable personal data on students. We use staff emails to send new resources and allow schools to vote.
No data is shared with third parties unless we are required to do so by law and we will never pass your data to a third party without asking for permission.
If you have any further questions about data use please email info@votesforschools.com to request a copy of our compliance statement.
In 2019 we were incredibly proud to be official content partners for anti-bullying week. VotesforSchools resources went out to over 93% of schools in the UK.
Click here to download our anti-bullying resources
VotesforSchools are honoured to be the official content provider for the award-winning careers programme The WOW Show.
Check out our Wow Show resourcesDeputy Head
Parkgate Primary School
