Officials are working closely with the education charity School CouncilsUK to develop a facility so that school councils can share bestpractice, and they are understood to have earmarked 100,000 forthe initiative.
Jessica Gold, director of School Councils UK, said: "We have run a pilotschool council network for a year and the Department for Education andSkills have agreed to invest in the network so that it becomes a muchbetter product for schools.
"At the moment, there is an online database so that when schools becomemembers of the network they can find other schools and look at theircase studies to see what they're doing. If they want to find a schoolthat is dealing with bullying, or relationships or whatever, they can doa search on the database."
She added: "The Department for Education and Skills have committed cashto develop the web aspect a lot more so there will be forums forchildren and forums for staff so they can communicate, get support andinformation to make their school councils better."
A spokesman for the department was unable to confirm that it was fundingthe project. But last week's education white paper, Higher Standards,Better Schools for All, places a strong emphasis on pupilparticipation.
It reads: "The number of effective school councils has increasedsubstantially. Pupils can have a real say in how they learn and achieveand can be much more involved in how the school is run, for examplehelping to interview new members of staff or contributing to decisionson schools meals.
"School councils have a vital role to play, alongside better parentalengagement, in promoting schools as strong community institutions."
Meanwhile, School Councils UK has unveiled a new report outlining theways in which school councils meet all of the outcomes in Every ChildMatters and it is pushing for school councils to become compulsory.
Gold said: "We would like to see clear guidelines on good practice and,ultimately, we would like to see school councils being a regular'statutory part of school life."
- See Analysis, p12 - www.dfes.gov.uk.
