Agenda item

The Panel will receive a presentation relating to this item.

The Strategic Planning Officer, Children's Services introduced this item to the Panel. She explained that around 100 children took part in the event and that both Parliaments were asked to discuss the issue of Narrowing The Gap.

She introduced pupils from Newbridge, Bathwick St Mary’s, Bathford, Marksbury, Longvernal and Chandag who were representing the Primary School Parliament. They performed their winning presentation Every Day Matters to the Panel.

The presentation incorporated helpful influences and hindrances into a role play, first of all showing all the things that went wrong on Jessica’s Day from having a bad night’s sleep, to parents arguing, having no breakfast, being told off by mother, getting bullied at school, teachers criticising her, going home in the rain, doing two hours of chores and going to bed worrying about school and home. 

The pupils then inverted the day into a good one where Jessica wakes up from a good night’s sleep, has a healthy breakfast with a happy family; she is greeted by friends at school and praised by teachers.  On her way home the sun shines and she is invited to play a game of football where she scores a goal.  After the match, Jessica went home to a loving family where she is encouraged to talk about her day and supported to do her homework.

The Strategic Planning Officer, Children's Services thanked the pupils and said that the presentation showed how everyone has a part to play in making a young person’s day go well.

She explained that the Young People’s Parliament were asked to debate Poverty, Ethnicity, Gender and State and Private Education.  These formed the themes for four separate workshops which the students ran in collaboration with an adult leader. 

Young people worked across different schools and youth groups to debate their chosen theme and to produce a presentation for the whole parliament to listen to, ask questions and finally to vote on.

She introduced young people from the Youth Forum, Chew Valley and Wellsway to present the winning theme which was Gender.

The young people spoke of how gender stereotyping can be detrimental to both girls’ and boys’ sense of self and limit their educational and career choices.

Gender stereotyping leads to girls being seen as weak, soft and emotional while boys are seen as physically strong and mentally tough; girls like to shop and boys like to play sport.  Women who are leaders are often labelled as bossy, men as authoritative. In terms of careers, males go for jobs in engineering, mechanics and science, while females opt for caring roles, cooking, cleaning and teaching.  90% of engineers are male, 65% of nurses are female.  In school, there is still a gender gap in subject performance.  Boys do better at Maths than girls. There are three boys to every girl in top Maths sets.

There is a gender pay differential in the UK of 20% while in the rest of Europe it is 5%.

The young people then took part in a role play to show gender discrimination.

A female named Alex arrives at a job interview for an Engineering position.

The male interviewer says she must have made an error on the application form and that he already has a PA.

Alex insists that she has applied to be an Engineer and has all the necessary qualifications.

The interviewer appears to take no notice and asks Alex only whether she has a husband or any children. He finally tells her that the job is no longer available.

They then showed a scenario where a male was being interviewed by a female to become a Primary School Teacher.

The female asks what qualifications he has.

The male says he has the appropriate qualifications and looks after his two nieces quite a lot.

The female then repeatedly points out that he has not applied to work in a Secondary School and asks how he would care for the children.

The male says he has always enjoyed working with children and just needs to be given his first opportunity to teach them.

The female concludes the interview by saying that they are ‘looking for a woman’.

The young people asked for teachers to react appropriately to offensive language and for schools to stop using workbooks that contained out of date stereotypes.

Councillor Liz Hardman asked if anybody present from Chew Valley would like to explain a little about their EqualiStar award.

A young person replied that it was awarded to teachers for enforcing equality within the school. He also wished to praise the school’s Equalities Team.

Councillor Sarah Bevan asked how the script was created for the Primary School Parliament.

Judy Allies, Director of Public Health Co-ordinator who helped the pupils on the day replied that they were asked to discuss the environments for helpful and unhelpful learning. She added that it was the pupils’ idea to do a role play on the good day / bad day scenario.

Councillor Nicholas Coombes asked a question relating to the Poverty theme. He said that it was a misconception that young people from poor backgrounds could not afford university fees as funding was available and asked how this theme was discussed.

The Strategic Planning Officer, Children's Services replied that it was mainly the additional expenditure of being at university, such as rental, bills, travel, food, books and field trips that were felt to be the problem.

One of the young people said that she was the first person to be going to university from her family and they had totted up the likely expenditure which was considerable.

One of the young people commented that children from less privileged backgrounds see the barrier as an immediate one.

Councillor Loraine Morgan-Brinkhurst commented that her own children had to have weekend jobs to help them through university. She added that she would hate for this to be a barrier and for children to not be able to reach their full potential.

Councillor Nicholas Coombes said that it was worth challenging the myth that exists as in some cases grants of £9,000 were available.

Councillor Dine Romero, Cabinet Member for Early Years, Children & Youth asked the young people what they would like to see happen next.

One of them replied that they would like children to be taught to stop being derogatory. She added that girls should not be stopped from taking part in activities if they were only female of the group.

Councillor Loraine Morgan-Brinkhurst commented that this was not just an issue within schools and called for local sports clubs to be more inclusive.

The Chair wished to congratulate everyone involved for a very well organised event and praised the facilitators for making sure that all pupils / young people were involved. She also asked that the Panel be kept informed of the Parliament dates for 2015.