The New Commissioners - Seed Fund 2016

Partners: Dr Sara Bragg (Education) with Blatchington Mill School. Main areas of Impact: Educational, Academic

This partnership between School of Education academic and Blatchington Mill School teacher has seeded the start of a planned 3-year project to develop a new kind of student ‘voice’. The project brought together a diverse group of Year 8 and 9 students to become ‘commissioners’ and identify areas of education they consider important, investigate students’ perceptions and experiences, and research different practices within and beyond the school. By connecting an academic evidence base on issues students want to explore, the methods developed in this project contributed to building cultures of collaboration between students and staff to improve education experiences. This builds on Bragg’s research on student voice and connects to her current ESRC seminar series on practice theory.