STUDENTS' MAKE THEIR MARK
On the 11th November 2016, Members of the UK Youth parliament will come together to debate and decide at the House Commons the most important issue to campaign on for the year ahead. The UK Youth Parliament is the only organisation that is allowed to sit in the House of Commons, so when the Youth Parliament asked Sunbury Manor Students to help choose the issues debated for the year ahead by voting, we couldn’t wait to get involved with such an exciting but equally important opportunity.
The UK youth Parliament provides opportunities for 11-18 year olds to use their voice in creative ways to bring about social change, this is exactly the ethos we promote at Sunbury Manor, whether it is in the classroom, student council meetings, after school clubs or at the public speaking debates. We try to provide as many opportunities for our students to be heard, by giving students a voice and the support they need to make a difference, therefore we as a school felt it was an obvious choice to be involved and It was time to for us MAKE OUR MARK!!!
Our year 10 and 11 students spent time in assembly’s and tutor time discussing and debating the 10 topics put forward for consideration, each student was then given one vote to make on the ballot papers.
Votes will be counted and posted off to the Youth Parliament, to be added to the votes given by all young people across the UK. The results will be published here when decided.
Last year there was a National campaign, designed at encouraging young people to vote in the EU referendum and not waste there vote, as it was reported that 64% of young people didn’t vote, as a school being involved with this make your mark campaign provided our students with another chance to realise that their votes are valued and important in the fight against making changes to benefit young people across the UK.
Megan Mc Elroy of Year 11 said, "I really enjoyed being able to express my own views because often I feel that as young people, our opinions are overlooked. This experience made my voice heard, it showed me how important voting actually is. I think I’ll definitely vote in the future because I can see how it really makes a difference."
