On November 18th, I was lucky enough to have been chosen to represent Edge Foundation at the Fair Education Youth Summit, which was the first event of its kind. Everyone attending the summit was a young person chosen by their organisations, bringing together a host of educational experience championed by those passionate about changing the education system. A theme repeated throughout the day was the importance of making change and, as Denise from the Fair Education youth steering group said, “we need to be so loud, those in power can’t ignore us.”
The day ran from 10am to 5pm, and was a mix of plenary events for everyone and focus groups attendants got to choose Union registering. I chose Impact of Child Poverty with Child Poverty Action Group, Influencing Policy Makers with MySociety and Starting Your Own Initiative with Envision, LIVE and InsideUni. Of the plenaries, there was one on Protecting Our Wellbeing As Young Activists with Project Hope. During the opening plenary, the Fair Education Youth Steering Group summarised their Fair Education Manifesto, which wrote about the difficult times facing the nation and the importance of giving young people the tools and skills to tackle climate change, the cost of living crisis, widening economic opportunities and improving health and welfare. Their manifesto included improving the working conditions and pay of teachers, stabilising the school workforce as a whole, reforming the curriculum to build in essential skills such as communication and creativity, modernising assessments to allow more students to showcasing their strengths, collecting data on the wellbeing of students, giving young people meaningful opportunities to share their views in decision making, increasing yearly years support, joining up services on a national level to work towards a holistic outcome, extending free school meals eligibility and increasing funding to CAMHS, social housing and other locally delivered services.
The Protecting Our Wellbeing As Young Activists session with Project Hope spoke about the importance of grounding techniques, taking breaks in your activism, finding hobbies and activities you enjoy outside your activism, scheduling and time management, building support networks and learning when to say yes or no. As the session facilitator said; “We can’t change the world on our own.” She also spoke about connecting with your inner ‘why’ by asking yourself ‘what is the reason you do the activism you do?’ ‘What motivates you to keep going?’ ‘What do you enjoy about it?’ ‘What do you gain from it?’
Within the breakout groups, the first I attended was Impact of Child Poverty with Child Poverty Action Group. During it, we discussed the different costs faced by attending school. Though school is technically free, there are a lot of associated costs such as travel, food, learning at school, learning at home, clubs, trips, fundraising activities and uniforms. We also discussed how these costs varied a great deal, depending on the school, area and age of the child. Child Poverty Action Group told us that the average cost for a primary school student was £18.69 per week, which rose to £39.01 for secondary school students. That equated to just over £1,700 per year for each secondary school student, simply for attending school. The second breakout room I attended was Influencing Policy Makers with MySociety. Here, we learnt about the role of MPs and how Parliament worked, as well as using sites like WriteToThem and TheyWorkForYou to find your MP and local councillors, as well as being able to use this to find their political interests, as well as looking at All Party Parliamentary Groups (AGGPs). Knowing the interests of politicians, better enables people to be able to influence politicians and adapt to their interests.
The facilitator explained APPGs as being “like university societies but for MPs and members of the House of Lords.” Constituency Surgeries are another place to meet your local political representatives and sometimes speaking in person can be more effective than sending emails. The third and final break out session I attended was Starting Your Own Initiative with Envision, LIVE and InsideUni. Here, we spoke about the importance in making initiatives that are sustainable, can carry on without you and has a measurable impact. It is useful for a brand to have a specific aim and SMART goals.
The day was a great opportunity to learn and discuss ideas with other young people passionate about activism and changing the education system and the country. As Fair Education repeated throughout the day, politicians often write and speak about ‘young people’ as though we’re a voiceless abstract, when they should platform the people they love to talk about. Education affects us all and as student grow up, the educational experiences and opportunities students have had, will affect every single aspect of society. It’s vital to get it right, and to keep working to continuously make education better. The Fair Education Youth Summit was a fun and energising day to remind us all of that.