On Monday 17 June 2024 members of Somerset Youth Parliament attended the annual Somerset Children’s Parliament Competition Day. The event was organised by the Somerset Centre for Integrated Learning (SCIL) and Somerset Youth parliament.

The event provides and important opportunity for children to develop their confidence, learn presentation skills and have their voices heard across services. This year, children took part in a workshop, led by members of Somerset Youth Parliament Josh and Abi. Pupils were challenged to think about their own communities and inspired them to get involved.

All of the speeches were inspiring, covering a diverse range of topics concerning children right now, including:

• using kindness to remove bullying from school
• connecting communities
• mental health and wellbeing
• recycled artwork
• reducing fruit waste

Below are testimonials from Josh and Abi about the day:

Josh, Deputy Member of Youth Parliament

Somerset Children’s Parliament Day 2024 was very memorable for many reasons. Firstly, the quality of the presentations delivered by the young people in their last 2 years of primary schools but also the level of enthusiasm that was clearly on show throughout. It was outstanding.

This highlights the importance of decision makers engaging with children and young people and the value that they can add to decision making processes which often goes undervalued. Secondly, how well the day was put together meant that it was able to run smoothly, and we were able to deliver multiple workshops which the young people seemed to thoroughly enjoy. They were able to practice their skills in debate and the importance of being able to evaluate other opinions and then make informed decisions. These are both really important skills which most young people don’t get to practice very often and seeing them flourish throughout the day was very rewarding. Within a week we’ve already had several pupils who want to join our Youth Parliament Advisory Group which is incredible.

Abigail Amponsah, an aspiring policy student, member of the Advisory Group for Somerset Youth Parliament and a Y13 student

On Monday 17 June Josh and I represented Somerset Youth Parliament by running workshops for year 5 and 6 primary school pupils.

As the aim of the day was for pupils to exercise their voices, our interactive workshops complimented the focus by including several activities to get young people thinking about their experiences, their opinions, appreciating others, working together and debating!  Of course practicing friendly challenging discussion.

When they weren’t in our workshops they were making group presentations to each other, a panel of adult (Including Councillor Heather Shearer) and young people’s judges. Winners were awarded prizes and everyone received acknowledgement and a ‘goody bag’ with a certificate, small gifts and a VIP invitation to join Somerset Youth Parliament.

Various serious topics were pitched (such as helping the rainforest) with explanations about what the pupils have been doing in their schools – and many used humour to get their messages across or catch our attention, such as ‘We Have a Litter Bit of a Problem’.

My final thoughts from the day after our last workshop were;  ‘ah, how fun!’,  How fun it is to understand what children and young people believe, and how fun it is to- not only reiterate that we do not know enough about our youth – but also that they uncomfortably always know much more than we think.

Next year’s event will be taking place on Monday 16 June 2025, save the date.

For more information about the event, check out SCIL’s Facebook page or contact scil@somerset.gov.uk