Student voice thrives when schools create meaningful ways for students to be heard. The SRC is one of the most effective and an often-underutilised ways to do this.
Education expert and SRC Masterclass host Jill Pearman says that a well-run SRC can help create a school culture built on inclusion and belonging.
But how do you create a strong SRC?
Pearman has been supporting schools build cultures of wellbeing across her 40-year career in education. She visited two exemplar schools to find out how they run their SRCs.
According to Pearman, there’s no one-size-fits-all when it comes to setting up and running an SRC, but there are schools who are leveraging their student structures to build student wellbeing.
Oxley Park Public School in Western Sydney and Westfield Sports High School in southwest Sydney are two schools that have thriving SRCs.
SRC can contribute to a wellbeing culture
“You can feel the culture when you walk through the playground,” Jill says of the two schools. “You can see in the way students interact with each other and with teachers. These schools take wellbeing seriously and put it at the centre of everything they do, including SRC.”
Jill says both schools have run the Peer Support program for many years, and have stood out as ‘gold standard’ for their best-practice approach to building a culture with strong peer-to-peer relationships and student voice.
Jill says that wellbeing is not an afterthought for these schools’ leadership teams.
“It’s embedded into everything they do, and that’s reflected in their SRC. They use student voice as a key tool for inclusion and belonging,” she says.
Representation matters
Both schools have their challenges, with their populations overrepresented by students from socioeconomic disadvantage. They also share a large multicultural community. For example, Westfield’s Sports High School has more than one third of students from a non-English language background.
The Principal at Westfield’s Sports High School, Andrew Rogers, embraces and celebrates the school’s diversity, which is reflected in the SRC membership.
Student voice means listening and responding
The SRC is a real opportunity for students to help shape the decisions that impact them. Jill says that both schools take student voice seriously.
“Student voice isn’t just a buzz term. These schools genuinely want input from their students as key stakeholders in the decision-making process,” Jill says.
“Everyone needs to be heard. But the worst thing you can do is ask someone for their opinion and then not listen to it,” Andrews says.
“We are very conscious that when we talk to our SRC students, when we give them the opportunity to speak and give their perspectives, that we act on that information. “
A wellbeing focus supports student engagement and outcomes
Wellbeing isn’t just about feeling good. It impacts engagement metrics, like school attendance, and outcomes, like academic performance.
For some students, like Draven in Year 6, it makes all the difference.
“Before I had a leadership role, I didn’t want to come to school,” Draven says. “I didn’t think I had what it takes to be a student leader. But I ran for a student leader position, and I got it.
Kim Smith, Principal at Oxley Park Public School, puts a wellbeing lens on SRC that recognises all kids benefit from leadership positions.
“It empowers them to be creative, confident and collaborative. It enriches their social capacity. And they become strong positive role models for other students,” she says.
Pearman says that wellbeing underpins academic performance.
“We know that wellbeing is directly linked to student performance. There’s a strong relationship between how a student feels and how they learn and their academic engagement,” she says.
This is reflected in Westfield’s 2024 NAPLAN results, with writing, spelling, grammar and maths all above school averages when compared with students from similar backgrounds.
Create your own thriving SRC
The SRC Masterclass is an online training course for teachers who coordinate their school’s SRC. The 10-episode video series includes interviews with students, teachers and school leaders from Westfields Sports High School and Oxley Park Public School. Hosted by Jill Pearman, it provides a deep dive into student voice, with practical tips, insights and research that will elevate your SRC to a thriving student voice and wellbeing vehicle.
