Issue - meetings

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  ...  view the full minutes text for item 24