Steal This Idea: How One School Successfully Rolled Out Class Meetings
Starting Class Meetings across a whole school can feel like a big task. Where do you begin? How do you get everyone on board?
One of our members, Luke Hale, Deputy Headteacher from Deighton Gates Primary School in Wetherby, recently shared the approach they've successfully used in not one, but two different schools. Instead of launching everything at once, they built confidence step by step, using a simple, repeatable cycle that gradually spread Class Meetings across the whole school.
The Class Meeting Cycle
Rather than trying to train everyone at once, they repeated the same process:
Train a small group of school councillors
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Co-lead a couple of Class Meetings with them
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Let those pupils mentor the next group of councillors
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Repeat until every year group is involved
Each cycle created more confident pupil leaders, who then helped the next group get started. Before long, Class Meetings had become part of the school's culture.
Why it worked:
1. Start small
Beginning with one enthusiastic group of councillors meant everyone could learn together before expanding across the school.
2. Learn by doing
Co-leading the first few meetings helped pupils build confidence before leading independently.
3. Let pupils become the experts
Once the first group felt confident, they helped train and support the next group of pupil leaders. Those pupils then repeated the process with the next year group, giving meaningful leadership opportunities and real ownership of the programme.
4. Keep teachers in the loop
Short updates helped teachers understand what councillors had been learning and what to expect, making it easier to support the process.
5. Protect the time
A regular 10 to 15 minute slot on the timetable turned Class Meetings into a weekly routine, rather than something that only happened when there was spare time.
Remember, it doesn't have to happen overnight
This approach grew one step at a time through a simple cycle of training, practising, mentoring and repeating. If you're just getting started, one class, one year group, or one enthusiastic group of pupil leaders can be all it takes to get the cycle started.
A huge thank you to this member for sharing their experience. We'd love to hear your top tips too, they could feature in a future Member Spotlight! 💡
— Karen O’Connor, Head of Membership