Pupils’ voices and participation have received increased attention in the past decade, a development which is often attributed to the ratification of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (UNCRC) (Lundy 2007). In Article 12 of the UNCRC, it is stated that a child shall, in particular, be provided with the opportunity to be heard in any judicial and administrative proceedings affecting the child, either directly or through a representative or an appropriate body, in a manner consistent with the procedural rules of national law. Hence, there is growing research interest in listening to pupils’ voices and supporting their participation in their school lives (e.g. Fielding 2007; Frost 2007; Tangen 2009; Carrington, Bland, and Brady 2010; Messiou 2011).

In Finland, the recognition of children’s rights to participation in the educational process has been institutionalised. For example, in the Basic Education Act 47 a § 1 mom. (1267/2013), it is stated that children have a right to participate in the process of planning the curriculum. These rights are further underscored in the new national core curriculum for Finnish preschool and basic education (FNBE, 2014), which formally came into effect in the year 2016.

The perspectives of participation according to the FNBE (2014) can be summarized in three categories: (1) children’s participation in developing school communities, (2) the social nature of teaching and learning, and (3) children’s participatory role in planning, implementing and evaluating their own learning (Niemi, Kumpulainen & Lipponen 2016).

These elements that Finnish national core curriculum emphasizes are not new in the field of education. There have been numbers of studies already for decades that have pointed out the importance of listening to pupils’ voices in developing education (Nieto 1994; Dahl 1995; Cook-Sathrer 2002; Whitehead and Clough 2004; Bragg 2007; Carrington, Bland, and Brady 2010; Messiou 2011; Niemi, Kumpulainen & Lipponen 2015a;2015b ) or what means the social nature of teaching and learning (Wenger 1998; Wells 1999; 2002; Nuthal 2002; Kumpulainen & Renshaw 2007; Sannino et al 2009). There are also number of studies related to pupils’ participation in school context (Whitehead & Clough 2004; Maitles & Deuchat 2006; Niemi, Heikkinen & Kannas 2010; Susinos & Haya 2014; Niemi, Kumpulainen, Lipponen & Hilppö 2015; Niemi, Kumpulainen & Lipponen 2015a; 2015b).

However, both on a national and on an international level there is a lack and a need of studies, which provides examples how these three goals could be put in action at the same time in classrooms as part of pupils’ everyday life. Rather, there are studies that show that children’s options for participating, expressing their voices, and taking part in decision making in the classroom are often organized around specific projects, which are, in many cases, “add-on” practices in classroom life (Malone & Hartung 2010, p. 32). In the approach described here, however, pupils’ participation is viewed as a legitimate practice and an organic part classroom life.

In this presentation we describe how a six-week-long participatory learning project was implemented in one classroom in Finland. The project lasted for 50 lessons that took place during five weeks. We also bring into discussion the methods we used in promoting pupils’ opportunities to express their perspectives from the project in order to help teachers to improve classroom practices.

Our research work is guided by two questions:

1. How pupils constituted the practices of the classroom used in the learning project?

 2. How methods used in this study promoted pupils participation?

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