Abstract

Student participation is essential in improving the quality of education. The Children’s Council is a student participation body in school governance. This body promotes student engagement in their learning and with the school. The school under study considers this Children’s Council as an essential element of its educational project and new governance. The Children’s Council is a successful particular reality in a socially vulnerable context that requires an intrinsic case study. This study describes the functioning of the Children’s Council as a strategy that gives children a voice in the school’s decision-making process and identifies barriers and difficulties in its implementation. Interviews were used to collect the voices of the participants in order to learn more comprehensively about the implementation and benefits of the Children’s Council in the school. Among the results, it is highlighted that the council has been a fundamental participatory body at the organizational level to transform school governance and promote methodological change in the classroom. It can be concluded that the formation of a Children’s Council has had a positive impact on the process of school transformation and improvement. Schoolchildren feel that they are listened to and have a real space for participation in the school’s decision-making process.