The data presented here was collected in Ireland where student voice is relatively new. Recent studies indicate that it is not yet optimal (Brown et al. 2020; Forde et al. 2018; McCormack et al. 2021) and a key concern of this research is that, despite signals in the literature that student voice is being welcomed by school leaders in Ireland, this does not often appear to be the case throughout the schools they lead (Brown et al. 2020; Harvey 2015). As part of a wider study, this paper presents qualitative data generated through interviews with school staff in one Irish post-primary school with a strong culture of student voice to illustrate the discrepancy that can exist between senior leaders and teachers in terms of how they embrace, enact, and experience student voice.

This research explores how the position a member of school staff holds in the school  hierarchy can determine their position on student voice. Ball et al. (2012) have provided  a typology of roles and positions through which school staff enact policy. Ball et al. (2012) outline that senior leaders  tend to be ‘narrators’ deciding what must be done, explaining policy to staff, and creating  a narrative around their vision; but they can also often be ‘transactors’ generating, working on and with data; and ‘entrepreneurs’ advocating, representing, and identifying with certain policies and producing creative and new initiatives. Middle leaders can also often take up these roles and positions. On the other hand, many teachers, and particularly  those towards the beginning of their careers, are what Ball et al. (2012) class as ‘receivers’ who rely on the interpretations of others to guide them and are somewhat protected from policy. There can also be ‘critics’, often union representatives or activists, who express discomforts or irritations (Ball et al. 2012). People can move between or take up multiple roles simultaneously and some roles will be more prominent in certain schools (Ball et al. 2012) but the positioning of figures of authority such as principals is likely to be considerably different to that of, for example, classroom teachers. To explain the underdevelopment of student voice in Irish post-primary schools, and the different positions taken by senior leaders and teachers, we theorise that student voice is largely taking place through principals and their leadership teams with teachers having minimal involvement.

This paper focuses on the qualitative data collected in one Irish post-primary school, referred to as Highfield Vocational School, to answer four key questions: 1. How open do staff members feel the school is to student voice? 2. How do staff members consider student voice to take place in the school? 3. How do staff members feel about student voice in the school? 4. How do the views of the school’s senior leadership team compare to the other staff members’ views? We draw on the data collected from nine staff members at Highfield Vocational School: the principal, three deputy principals, one middle leader, and four classroom teachers. Three staff members (i.e. the principal, one of the deputy principals, and the middle leader) were interviewed individually while two of the deputies were interviewed together as a pair, and all four classroom teachers were interviewed together as a group. Ethical approval was granted by the researchers’ institution and informed consent was sought from all interviewees and with their permission each interview was recorded and later transcribed. Highfield Vocational School is a co-educational post-primary school in Ireland. Although Highfield’s students come from a variety of backgrounds, they are predominantly middle class, and the school is regarded as high performing. While we could have chosen a range of schools from our wider sample to illustrate how school leaders’ strong commitment to student voice at the whole-school level does not necessarily equate to a strong commitment on the part of teachers, we have intentionally chosen Highfield as a case study on the grounds that it is relatively well known in the region for its tradition of student voice. In the past the school and some of the senior leaders interviewed received some acclaim and recognition for its student voice work and the current school website depicts a strong commitment to student voice

This research shows how the commitment of senior leadership teams to student voice is not necessarily shared by teachers and how different staff members work on and with student voice in different ways. Student voice customs can be rhetorical, perhaps even exaggerated by some, and peripheral to others. Of course, in some schools there will be certain middle leaders and classroom teachers positively embracing, enacting, and experiencing student voice, and buying into the vision of senior leaders but in many cases a significant discrepancy can exist between senior leadership teams and those outside of these teams, and in some ways between middle leaders and classroom teachers too. As student voice remains considerably underdeveloped in Irish post-primary schools despite Irish education and most Irish schools becoming replete with student-centred discourses, this study provides one possible way of making sense of the current state of play. More broadly, it points to how different actors work on and with student voice in different ways.

Ball, S. J., Maguire, M., & Braun, A. (2012). How Schools do Policy: Policy Enactments in Secondary Schools. Oxon: Routledge. Brown, M., McNamara, G., O’Brien, S., Skerritt, C., & O’Hara, J. (2020). Policy and practice: including parents and students in school self-evaluation. Irish Educational Studies, 39(4), 511-534. Forde, C., Horgan, D., Martin, S., & Parkes, A. (2018). Learning from children’s voice in schools: Experiences from Ireland. Journal of Educational Change, 19(4), 489-509. Harvey, G. (2015). The Evolving Model of School Self-Evaluation in Ireland: How a Person’s Perception of Purpose and Power Determines Practice. Doctoral thesis, Maynooth: National University of Ireland Maynooth. McCormack, O., O’Flaherty, J., & Liddy, M. (2021). Students’ views on their participation in publicly managed second level schools in Ireland: The importance of student-teacher relationships. Educational Studies, 47(4), 422-437.