European Youth Parliament

A group of eight of our sixth formers were invited to attend the Regional Forum of The European Youth Parliament, which was held in the magnificent South Shields Town Hall on Wednesday 5th April. Delegates came from twelve north-eastern schools and colleges and the sessions were run under the chairmanship of previous winning team.

The day was great fun, with a warm up debate on reality TV, some excellent and controversial debates on terrorism and the pharmaceutical industry among many others. There was a splendid buffet lunch provided as well as excellent hospitality all day. Our team were opposing a motion which involved vocational education and our team was complemented on the main speech which was made by Roz Thomson. All of our team spoke in various debates and the well organised procedure allowed for everyone to take part. The afternoon debates concluded with a debate in French, Spanish, German and even a little Greek, which all served to emphasise the european focus of the whole day.

The winners of session were Ponteland High School, who were speaking on behalf of the Ministry of Agriculture and who had a fine team of very well prepared and articulate delegates. They will now go forward to the National Forum.

All of our students agreed that the experience was one to remember and enabled them to not only listen to their peers speaking with authority, knowledge, passion and control, but also allowed them to equally show confidence when speaking on very weighty matters. It was a brilliant educational experience and really showed the value of talking and interacting with one’s peers and in many ways being a real citizen.

The team from Teesdale, who are all members of the school Debating Society consisted of:

Roz Thomson
Elinor Betton
Jessica Tarn
Edwin Hashagen
Rachel Poulter
Matthew Scott
Matthew Slater
Mitchell Greener

Included are pictures of our team and other delegates from the Forum in and outside South Shields Town Hall as well as the details of the various debates that took place and the criteria for judging them.

The Resolution Booklet can be viewed here.