This Act will have a massive impact for school councils across the country. It states that schools' governing bodies must "invite and consider" the views of its pupils and a whole variety of issues.

What this means is that the people who make the biggest decisions in your school (the governing body) will have to ask you what you think about them, and listen to your views.

They won't be able to ask all pupils individually about every issue, so you'll need a school council that's good at involving everyone and can speak on their behalf. So your school has to make sure your school council has the time and skills to talk to everyone in the school.

Schools that are doing this well already often use class councils, this ensures everyone has a chance to have their say. Through good structures for feedback they also know that their point of view has been listened to and passed on.

Now would be a great time to introduce yourselves to the governors at your school (the governing body). You could write them a letter asking to come to one of their meetings to explain what you do and how you can help them talk to all the pupils in the school.

You can have a discussion with them about what they do and how you can help one another.

They will need to be sure that you really do represent everyone in the school. Can you prove this to them? Do you have a constitution that describes how this works? Do you have notes from meetings that show you involving everyone and listening to opinions from across the school? (If you need some help creating these, why not have a look in the For Free section of this site).

If you want to read more about the Education and Skills Act 2008 you can have a look on the DCSF's website: www.dcsf.gov.uk/publications/educationandskills/

If you would like to talk about what this means for your school and school council please send feel free to give us a call on 0845 456 9428 or 020 7482 8910 or email us at info@schoolcouncils.org.