Broughton S2 group looks at local democracy
As S2 pupils at Broughton High School we undertook an inter-disciplinary learning (IDL) course as part of our S2 elective subject choice called ‘Power to the Pupils’ which was run by Callum and Stephan from Community Learning & Development (CLD).
The course – called Power to the Pupils – has been great as it has had a local focus which has allowed us to gather and identify issues that directly affect us as young people growing in the north Edinburgh area. We had great debates and positive discussion and of course great fun as well deciding which were there most important topics that we could address!
Our top issues were:
- Negative stereotypes given for young people need to be challenged
- Cyber Bullying
- Free bus passes for all young people
- Reduce the amount of bullying/name calling in Edinburgh
- Reduce the cost of bus travel of young people
- Young People should have more of a choice in the curriculum
- Young People are unable to use some words (e.g. due to PC issues/double standards/they’re inflammatory etc.)
- Dog fouling in the streets/parks which young people use
- Young people not having a vote
- Edinburgh should have a theme park like M&Ds
- Cinema prices are too expensive.
Since coming to ‘power to the pupils’ we have been involved in some trips out to places like the City Chambers (above)and the ‘main cooncil headquarters’ where we learned about democracy, how decisions are made and who makes them on our behalf.
We even got to meet a real councillor – Nigel Bagshaw, who represents the Green Party in this area (Inverleith ward) in Edinburgh. He was really great! He listened to our concerns and he also gave us some fantastic advice on how we could take our issues forward. We also saw lots of famous people in some of the paintings that are hanging on the walls in the council building.
After visiting the city chambers we realised we should lobby on a more local level so we had a visit to the local Neighbourhood Partnership office based in North Edinburgh (above).
We raised several concerns that we had identified as being important to us. Negative stereotypes of young people, dog fouling in public spaces were just a couple of subjects we raised. The staff were great they listened all our questions and gave us some really positive feedback. They agreed that they were very important issues that needed tackling and gave us brilliant advice on methods to take our campaigns forward which was good.
We have learned some great new techniques and various methods to make our voices heard. Having the opportunity to access politicians with our issues by lobbying council officials as well as on a more local level with the North Edinburgh Neighbourhood Partnership has been fantastic and we all hope we have influenced them in a positive way.
The course has allowed us to learn new skills which will help us in the future there has also been lots of great discussion, debates which was interesting and above all it was great fun!
Here are some quotes from members of our group:
“The stuff we have learned will be useful in the future” – Harry Hunter S2
“Visiting the city chambers was really interesting it is a very old building with lots of traditions and history” – Simran Singh(S2)
“We hope we can make a difference and change people’s opinions of young people” – Chloe Carr (S2)
“It has been an amazing course and interesting” – Gabriella Borges (S2)
“I have made new friends as well as learnt some new skills” – Kyle Crooks (S2)
Power to the Pupils!
