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• Our Voices Our Schools is an online toolkit for schools to improve student voice.
• The toolkit is for school management and teaching staff and seeks to improve the participation of young people in decision-making in the school system.
• The toolkit is based on the Lundy Model which provides a way of conceptualising a child's right to participation, as laid down in Article 12 of the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child.

Following two years of work, the Comhairle na nÓg National Executive today launched their toolkit Our Voices Our Schools at Collins Barracks.

Our Voices Our Schools was created as a result of young people around the country expressing a feeling that there was inequality in their school. Responding to these concerns the National Executive developed this online resource for schools, furthering opportunities for all students to have their voices heard and included in decision-making in school.

Our Voices Our Schools is for school management and teaching staff and seeks to improve the participation of young people in decision-making in the school system.

The guidelines will create an effective partnership between the student body, teachers and school management by providing equal opportunity for individual, collective and representative student voices to be heard and recognised.

The online resource is based on the Lundy Model of participation in line with the National Strategy for Children and Young People’s Participation in Decision Making 2015 – 2020.

The toolkit includes worksheets, reflective exercises, peer-assessment tools, resources to develop surveys and research articles to assist principals, teachers and young people themselves in improving the participation of young people in schools.

Minister Zappone officially launched Our Voices Our Schools to an audience of young people and adults from secondary schools and educational stakeholders. Videos of how schools have implemented this project and the impact it has had were shown and participants workshopped the toolkit.

The Minister shared her excitement about the potential of the online resource created by the young people, stating that:

We need to work together to make our schools places where students are listened to and heard. It is no longer a time for young people to be seen and not heard. Young people will be seen and young people will be heard.

The online resource can be found at www.ourvoicesourschools.ie