The Creative School Change Project, funded by Arts Council England, and directed by Ken Jones (Keele) and Pat Thomson (Nottingham) is investigating the ways in which schools have taken up the cultural offer made by Creative Partnerships (CP) to further ‘whole school change’ (see Thomson, 2007 for discussion). Our research has been in two phases, the first of which produced a snapshot across forty schools nominated by regional directors (see the interim report and some conference papers on www.creativeschoolchange.org.uk). The second phase of the project consists of twelve in-depth school case studies conducted over a two year period: we have just completed data production and are now engaged in analysis. Our final report will consist of twelve school ‘portraits’ (after Lawrence Lightfoot, 1984) and papers about some key themes; one paper will focus on CP funded initiatives designed to elicit and support students’ perspectives and voices .

In this paper I present some early thinking about students and voices. We have to date identified four distinctive strands of school-CP activity:
(1)    a set of projects which allow children and young people to develop an ‘aesthetic voice’ which is pleasurable and powerful
(2)    a set of projects in which children and young people are encouraged to ‘creatively’ express views about their school which are then used to shock and shame staff
(3)    some schools where children and young people are encouraged to ‘creatively’ engage in predetermined agendas, sometimes in tokenistic and elitist ways
(4)    some schools where children and young people are able to express opinions about pedagogy, curriculum and school practices which are taken seriously and which do appear to have some influence on events and reform.
I will share some examples of each of these strands and locate them within the broader debates about ‘pupil voice’ and youth participation.

Bio note
Pat Thomson PSM PhD is Professor of Education, Director of Research, and Director of the Centre for Equity and Diversity in Education (CREDE) in the School of Education, The University of Nottingham. She is a former headteacher of disadvantaged schools in South Australia and strongly committed to social justice in education and education for social justice. Her recent and current research focuses on pupil voice, the arts and inclusion, young people who are excluded from schooling, and the everyday work of headteachers. She also undertakes practitioner research in doctoral education. Recent publications include Helping doctoral students write: pedagogies for supervision (Kamler and Thomson 2006 Routledge) and Doing visual research with children and young people (Editor, 2008, Routledge). She has just completed School leadership – heads on the block? (in press Routledge 2008) and is working on Changing schools through systematic inquiry: why and how school leaders do research (with Jill Blackmore, Routledge forthcoming 2009).