Research about the nature and importance of students’ voices and participation in school has been gaining international strengthen, although with reduced impacts in school reforms (Brasof, 2015). Several reasons of ethical-political, epistemological and social-educational nature have been put forward for a long time (Pereira, Mouraz, & Figueiredo, 2014), of which students’ active engagement in curriculum change can be emphasized for its ability to empower and increase the students responsibility in matters of their own learning (Ngussa & Makewa, 2014). However, too few times we can find reports of national and international initiatives in which the students’ voices in matters of curriculum construction and change are taken into consideration. In Portugal, legal regulation foresees the participation of students in three bodies of representation within the school management: General Council, Pedagogical Council and the Class Council. Yet, as curriculum and assessment policies are traditionally too centralized (Mouraz, Leite, & Fernandes, 2013) and too often swingued at the waves of political parties, there is little space and time in schools to contextualization and adaptation that takes students interests and needs into consideration. In this context, we briefly present and discuss several studies that were developed within a network of researchers and schools entitled “Observatory of Life in Schools”, in which the students’ voices about curriculum policies and implementation, schooling and how it affects their lives is highlighted (Pereira et al., 2016; Pereira, Mouraz, & Figueiredo 2014; Torres, & Mouraz, 2015). Moreover, an ongoing study of students’ voices in the beginning of upper secondary education (Secondary Education in Portugal) about curriculum and curricular work is also presented focusing on the huge differences students’ perceive between the Portuguese Basic Education and Secondary Education curriculum and on what they have to suggest in matters of curriculum improvement. Students usually value the effort that the teachers put themselves in helping them feel motivated, engaged in school tasks and improve their learning (Torres, & Mouraz, 2015), but are very critic of the excess of school contents and external assessments that are legally imposed upon them, often without an understanding of the importance of those contents and of their relation with other domains of their learning.

Brasof, M. (2015). Student Voice and School Governance: Distributing Leadership to Youth and Adults. New York, Routledge. Mouraz, A., Leite, C., & Fernandes, P. (2013). Teachers’ role in curriculum design in Portuguese schools. Teachers and Teaching: Theory and Practice, 19(5), 478-491. doi:10.1080/13540602.2013.827363. Ngussa, B. M. & L. N. Makewa (2014). Student Voice in Curriculum Change: A Theoretical Reasoning. International Journal of Academic Research in Progressive Education and Development, 3 (3, Special Issue), 23-37. DOI: 10.6007/IJARPED/v3-i3/949 Pereira, F., Freires, T., Santos, C., Magalhães, D., M., Ana, & Sousa, S. (2016). Students’ voices about how schooling affects their lives. In Anthony Montgomery & Ian Kehoe (Eds.), Reimagining the purpose of schools and educational organisations: Developing critical thinking, agency, beliefs in schools and educational organisations (pp. 145-160). Dordrecht: Springer. Pereira, F., Mouraz, A., & Figueiredo, C. (2014). Sudjelovanje u?enika u životu škole: “u?eni?ki glas” i ublažena demokracija / Students participation in school life: The 'student voice’' and mitigated democracy. Croatian Journal of Education, 16(4), 935-975. doi:10.15516/cje.v16i4.742 Torres, A. C. & Mouraz, A. (2015). Students’ transition experience in the 10th year of schooling: Perceptions that contribute to improving the quality of schools, Improving Schools, 18 (2), 127-141. DOI: 10.1177/1365480215581460