At the August Somerset Youth Parliament meeting, two new members joined the group so it was a great opportunity to touch base and talk about the groups core values and so many aspects of life which test those things many of us feel are important – look out for more articles this month around, respect, equality, diversity and inclusion, as well as mental health. Each member may have different experiences or even opinions which adds to the diverse dynamic of Somerset Youth Parliament!
Here Lara expands on the meeting discussion on education and Votes at 16 and Political education.
Education for life
I have believed for a long time that our curriculum needs to have more skills for life. That said, I have learnt skills in school that have been directly applicable to me at Work.
I work in retail, and during a recent conversation with my line manager regarding my transition to assistant management, he brought up a really interesting point. He explained that in order to be a good manager, you need to be able to explain WHY. You could tell someone to do something for you – like “Can you organise the shelving, swapping the top and bottom shelves and cleaning the rack? Tell me when you’re done.” Walking away from that conversation the colleague may follow what you’ve asked because you’re the manager but they won’t understand why they’re doing it and will probably think it’s pointless and therefore take as long as they want in doing so. Revisiting that scenario, you could ask the colleague: “The business wants to sell more of the items that are on the bottom shelf as they make more profit. The items on the top shelf have a lower profit margin, so could you swap the two over for me and give it a quick wipe down so it looks nice and neat?” This time they know exactly why they’re doing something, they can take more ownership over it and when they see a higher sale in the items on that top shelf they feel like they’ve had a bit of a difference. This shows the importance of explaining the ‘WHY’ to students.
I didn’t know that mental maths would help me whilst I was working on till, as I assume the calculator would always do it for me. Now when I’m given extra change after pressing ‘pay’ on the till I have to use the mental arithmetic from very early school days to work out how much extra I need to give them. It can be little stuff like that or it could be using percentages to work out how much colleague discount will come off of a product or how much I need to reduce a product by. If someone had told me in school where each of the things would be applicable, as well as teaching me what other skills I would need for life like budgeting/finance skills as well as good communicating/management skills then I feel like I would’ve been better equipped leaving school.
Votes at 16
According to GOV.UK: ‘Sixteen year olds will be given the right to vote in all UK elections as part of seismic changes to modernise UK democracy, delivering a key manifesto commitment and helping to restore trust in politics through our Plan for Change.
This will mean young people, who already contribute to society by working, paying taxes and serving in the military, will be given the right to vote on the issues that affect them. This will bring UK-wide elections in line with Scotland and Wales and is a major step towards meeting a manifesto commitment, ushering in the biggest change to UK democracy in a generation’.
Link to more information from GOV.UK: 16 year olds to be given right to vote through election reforms – GOV.UK
I’ve recently had a long debate with my best friend about the new votes at 16 ruling.
I’ve always been for having a vote at 16, considering you pay tax and get several other rights at that age, so you’re contributing to society in the same way an 18-year-old would.
His argument was that 16-year-olds don’t have any education on politics and at 18, he felt knew more than he did at 16.
I do argue that you don’t get adequate education in school or college for anything regarding politics anyways, so my opinion really doesn’t make a difference! There are some 16-year-olds that are more politically inclined than others, in the same way there’s some 18 plus -year-olds that are more politically inclined than others.
We need better political education in schools, and I’d want to help Youth Parliament to lobby that on the back of this advancement.
This is a huge change that we’ve been fighting for a while, but to have it make any impact, you need young people to be better informed, especially as social media is driving a lot of the political opinions across my generation and I fear that leads people to be misled really easily.
Lara
Nominations are open for the next Somerset Members of Youth Parliament!
Nominations are now open for the 2025 Youth Parliament Elections, where young people aged 11-17 years who live, go to school or college in Somerset can self-nominate for the chance to represent their peers, campaign on issues that matter to young people and represent Somerset on the national stage.
For more information about the elections and to self-nominate, visit https://somersetyouthparliament.org.uk/elections/
