IOE and ICEDC were represented at the British Council’s Connecting Classrooms: Student Voice Forum in Hong Kong, on 1 November 2008. Sam Mejias was invited by the British Council to attend the conference on behalf of the Institute of Education as an academic participant-observer. The purpose of the conference was to bring together a community of practice around student voice from the UK with school communities of practice in Hong Kong, for a one-day forum on student voice in UK and Hong Kong schools.

The British Council’s Connecting Classrooms programme links schools in the UK with schools in over 50 countries as part of its work to promote intercultural dialogue active global citizenship. The expansion of the programme to Hong Kong is unique in that British Council programme officers have decided to use the theme of student voice to facilitate the UK-Hong Kong links.

The UK delegation to Hong Kong consisted of students, teachers and heads from Portsmouth and included one adult and one student representative from five schools each, plus a representative from Portsmouth council. Portsmouth was selected to participate because of their recent research and practice on student voice across the city. The Portsmouth Learning Community project, a 2002-2007 partnership with the University of Sussex, was initiated to develop Portsmouth as a learning community, and focused in part on student voice. The project yielded a school resource, the Portsmouth Student Voice: Handbook for Staff, a 200-page manual for schools that draws on experiences from the project.

Held at the HKICC Lee Shau Kee School of Creativity, the British Council forum included over 200 participants, the majority of who were students and teachers from Hong Kong schools who had been involved in promoting student voice or were interested in becoming involved with the British Council Connecting Classrooms programme. The forum was particularly notable for its inclusion of student voice, with space and opportunities for students to participate throughout the day. In the five morning sessions, students from both UK and Hong Kong schools gave PowerPoint or flipchart presentations on the student voice initiatives in their schools, while the afternoon sessions allowed students, teachers and practitioners from both the UK and Hong Kong to work together to identify opportunities, challenges and hopes for promoting student voice between countries through the Connecting Classrooms programme. The British Council has posted pictures and documents of the conference on its website, at http://www.britishcouncil.org/hongkong-education-student-voice.htm.