I read an article this week which prompted me to start thinking about student voice. In recent years it seems to have got itself a pretty bad name.

These days, it’s common practice for an Ofsted team to request to speak to groups of students during an inspection. These can be picked at random from a register, or senior leaders are often asked to select them. The group - or groups - usually consist of between five and 10 students who are then grilled by “the team”.

It’s fair to say that children are more open and honest than your average adult, and when you combine that with a lack of awareness of what a leading question is, let alone how to deal with one, you start to see where Ofsted teams have discovered new “lines of enquiry” which they have then latched on to like rottweilers with a bit of meat.

However, more often than not, students will give a very positive and warm appraisal of their own school and teachers, and these appraisals should not be sniffed at.

The default position seems to be to question the validity of “student voice”; mainly, in my view, because of the “culture of suspicion” that we seem to have fostered in the UK teaching and learning community. The spirit of trust has been overcome by the more virile emphasis on accountability. With this, we can’t help but question everything, becoming Gestapo like in our rigour.

But just as they say in business “the customer is never wrong”, I believe that nine times out of 10, you can say the same about the students. And that’s something that results really can’t show; the story behind what pupils have or haven’t done in school. The experience they have had with a teacher and how they feel about what they have been doing.

The ‘prejudice’ of progress data

The prejudice of attainment and progress data is clear. A higher ability group is more likely to enjoy school and therefore more likely to behave, and also more likely to make good progress and more likely to score high grades. But such a group of pupils were always going to do well. What about their experience with the teacher? Were they challenged? Did the teacher open their eyes and broaden their perspectives and knowledge beyond the prescribed curriculum? Did they inspire them?

These are the things data can’t tell us but which student voice surely can. “Do you enjoy lessons?” Yes or no. “Do you feel challenged?” Yes or no. “Do you feel your teacher wants you to do well?” Yes or no. And so on. The point I’m trying to make is that exam performance comes down to the student at the end of the day, how much revision they do, their ability and their own interest in the particular subject. Of course, teachers have an impact, but not the deciding one.

Student voice does measure the quality of the teacher, and in my opinion, in a much more wholesome way than data. If we have to have performance-related pay (which I really don’t think we should), could we not have a system where the central method of appraisal was based around student voice interviews and questionnaires rather than exam results? I know some of you may be having a heart attack right now, but it’s just a thought.

Thomas Rogers is a classroom teacher who runs rogershistory.com and tweets at @RogersHistory

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