Each of the four roundtables had a different theme: Sustainability, Climate and Citizenship Education; Building Skills Relevant to Life; Assessments, Mental Health and Wellbeing; and Creating a More Equitable and Inclusive Education System, and each was chaired by a member of the Youth Shadow Panel. Key experts reflected on what we’ve heard from young people so far, discussed how young people’s asks of the education system reflect their research and insight, and suggested potential strategies for making those asks into a reality.
In the ‘Sustainability, Climate and Citizenship Education’ roundtable, Liv chaired discussions between Bryden Joy, Teacher Ambassador for the Association for Citizenship Teaching and Senior Lead Practitioner for Personal Development at the Ormiston Academies, and Alex Green, Head of Let’s Go Zero at Ashden, on the need to integrate sustainability into all subjects in a way that feels natural to prevent the topic from being sidelined. Ashley Hodges, Chief Executive of Young Citizens, and Dr Paul Vare, Senior Lecturer at the University of Gloucestershire, brought up the importance of starting citizenship education early and making the curriculum more practical - facilitating students’ personal development through autonomy, choice and responsibility and engaging in skills- and project-based learning.
Kea chaired the ‘Building Skills Relevant to Life’ roundtable where Liz Robinson, CEO of Big Education, and Rebecca Deegan, Founder and CEO of I have a voice, shared that it’s not only young people who want education to focus more on day-to-day and interpersonal skills but also parents, teachers and employers. Later, Ruth Marvel, Chief Executive of The Duke of Edinburgh’s Award, Elizabeth Henderson, Chief Volunteer of England for The Scouts Association, and Dave Parr, Chief Executive of the Oasis Academy, talked about the importance of creating guarantees rather than recommendations that students will have enrichment opportunities and time to learn life skills in school to ensure all schools deliver this education and that students from disadvantaged communities are not left behind.
The ‘Assessments, Mental Health and Wellbeing’ roundtable, chaired by Liv, brought up conversations between Paul Steer, Director of Policy for OCR, and Dr David Putwain, Professor of Education and Early Childhood Studies at Liverpool John Moores University, about how England’s GCSE assessment system crams significantly more hours of high stakes exams together than most comparable education systems and that, despite what the education system seems to think, taking mocks actually increases exam anxiety rather than decreasing it (if only they’d spoken to the students). Florence Ackland, Senior Subject Specialist at the PSHE Association, talked about the need for in-depth education around dealing with physical and mental health to extend throughout all stages of education and how the current lack of training in this area leaves teachers with low confidence in delivering these topics.
The final roundtable covered how to go about ‘Creating a More Equitable and Inclusive Education System’ where Alishba chaired discussions led by Candice West, Equality, Diversity and Inclusion Advisor at EqualiTeach, and Dr Luke Beardon, Senior Lecturer in Autism at Sheffield Hallam University, on the need for a more inclusive and diverse curriculum to not only represent marginalised communities but to support the psychological safety of students from marginalised communities throughout their learning. Dr Pedi Obani, Parent Team Lead and Educator at Afrikindness, also described how expanding past learning about social justice and inclusion on a local level to learning about it on a national and international level, such a through ‘twin school’ schemes makes this learning more meaningful to students and Dr Jemma Monkhouse, Senior Lecturer in Primary and Early Years Education at Sheffield Hallam University, added that this can help them to better understand intersectional issues.
The Youth Shadow Panel learnt a lot from all the experts they met with and, while staying true to their experiences as students and the voices of the young people they’ve heard from throughout the review, they will use their insights to help write the recommendations for their final report.