On 17 February 24 students  from Devonport High School for Girls, Hele’s School, Plymstock School, Devonport High School for Boys, Coombe Dean, Torquay Boys’ Grammar and Notre Dame took part in Euroscola in Strasbourg. 

Participation was achieved by competitive entry in a round of interviews in French last term discussing a number of European issues, followed by two workshops which prepared them well for the experience.  In addition to this most of the students had been reading the newspapers and watching the news on Europe regularly in the run up to the visit itself.

The students seized every opportunity during Euroscola Day to ask questions in French (along with English the two official languages of the day) and the UK group’s total contribution to the whole day’s program, achieved a good 40% – much higher than the 5% portion of the audience of 500 they represented. 

During the day the staff accompanying the group (Mrs. E. Wiltshire and Mr. L. Norster from DHSG and Mrs. S. Saunders from DHSB) were approached by one of the European Parliament officials who congratulated them on their students’ involvement in the day and their consistent efforts to speak French.  He said that this is exactly what the Euroscola organisers wanted the students to do and that they had been very good ambassadors for their schools.

Students from the African union were very passionate about speaking out on a variety of topics including the state of Israel, women’s rights and democratic participation. The British delegation, in return, were eager to share their views upon the issues at hand, adding spice to the debate offering a liberal perspective on equal rights; as a result the topic was amended to include minority groups such as homosexuals and ethnic minorities. Overall, the debate was a huge success as it brought together students from across 40 countries and two continents.

Politics was not the only thing on the agenda; the event included social activities such as multinational quizzes, opportunities to forge new friendships over a meal and ending it all with a disco. This resulted in many new facebook friends, invites to other parties across the globe and much enjoyed banter with Irish and the Israelis.

Liam Appleby, aged 18, believes the event to be a great social and political experience which hopefully will inspire the students to pursue a political future and spread the importance of political participation.

Sereena Gill, aged 18, feels that the event had a long-lasting effect on her political dreams as she would now like to venture into European politics and even possibly become a future President of the European Parliament, obviously after her time as UK Prime Minister!

 Devonport High School for Girls, Notre Dame Catholic School, Hele’s School, Ivybridge Community College, Plymstock School, Devonport High School for Boys, Torquay Girls Grammar School and Plymouth High School for Girls

The students’ commitment was reflected in their attendance at two preparatory workshops where they held discussions on European issues and were able to debate with two well-informed members of the European Movement. 

Excitement was high as the group flew from Exeter to Paris, and then took the TGV on to Strasbourg.   The next day was Euroscola Day and here again the students’ enthusiasm and determination to take part were in complete contrast to the perceived British attitude towards Europe:  three out of the six ‘rapporteurs’ came from the South West group, so a 50% representation of the debating groups when our students’ presence at the event reflected 5% of the total 500 participants on the day.  Another student acted as president of his group and several others were able to ask questions in the plenary session.

The following day, the students descended on the cathedral square and interviewed passers-by about their views on Europe, with some interesting results, not least the comments that UK needed to decide between Europe and the USA!!  Our students, who have gained tremendously in knowledge about Europe and European institutions and were beginning to form their own opinions, were surprised at the commonly-held view that Brits are reluctant Europeans – food for thought!

Here are some of the comments the students made on the day itself and on the experience they gained personally.

 “I am thoroughly culturally enriched because of it. It was a brilliant opportunity and I would not have missed it for the world.

 “The actual Euroscola day was really well organised, there was enough time to do everything and nothing felt rushed. There was enough time for questions and talking in smaller groups.

 “Brilliant, can’t recommend it highly enough.

 “Such a good experience, not only just the experience of being in the building itself and understanding more about how the European Union works, but talking with people from other countries and working with them in small teams was really fun and a great opportunity to try and use other languages.

 “I really enjoyed Euroscola day. Meeting and working with people from so many different countries and cultural backgrounds was a great experience, and I really learnt a lot, particularly about the EU itself. Discussing our given issues was really interesting because of all the different ideas that people had, and of course trying to think in another language.

“I also really enjoyed the Eurogame at lunch time, because it encouraged us to interact with others from all over Europe and to speak other languages [even though I had gone to primarily speak French, I also got the opportunity to speak a little German too whilst playing this game]

“I met loads of brilliant people and I thought the diversity was incredible. It felt very well prepared and I didn’t feel at anytime lost or not knowing what to do. I thought the catering was excellent, and I especially liked the Eurogame, as this was when I felt it was less serious and you could interact with everyone.

“It was amazing! Nothing like how I expected, I was voted a ‘rapporteur’, it is one of the single most terrifying but enjoyable days of my life! The whole day was planned well and I met people I would never have had the chance to meet otherwise plus I learnt so much about other cultures and the European Union too.”

 Experience gained:

(I gained) .. massive boost in confidence in my languages, an interest in European Parliament/politics, and I enjoyed meeting people from other countries/ cultures.

I learned much more about how the European Union works, but also I found it really interesting to see how so many languages come together but yet people can still communicate easily and work together, made me think about how I want to use my languages in the future.

It is a well known fact that we are lazy when it comes to learning languages. I really realized how important young people coming from small countries consider  learning English to be which really made me want to improve my own language skills. The best part was just talking, not even necessarily about the EU but just about their lives. I also made loads of friends which is really nice.

I gained an insight into the workings of the EU, I also gained the chance, as team leader/minuter in our small groups, to learn how to communicate with people in a variety of languages (French, English & German) which gave me more confidence in spontaneously talking in another language. In terms of the sondage, I also gained a lot of confidence with approaching members of the public and conversing in French.

I’ve felt my language skills have improved, along with my conversational skills and my knowledge of the EU in general. I do have a renewed sense of respect for the work of the EU. I felt very privileged to be there, and am very glad I’ve met so many people from different parts of Europe.

Second year Politics students became Members of the European Parliament (MEPs) for the day at the European Parliament in Strasbourg where they represented the United Kingdom and debated key European issues alongside sixth formers from across the 27 EU member states. Students worked in multilingual working groups to devise common strategies to tackle a range of issues such as poverty, social exclusion, climate change and EU foreign policy. They then reported back in a plenary session where they had to defend and debate their positions. Students could speak in any working language of the EU, with interpreters on hand to translate where necessary.

College students were keen to lead the various groupings, and showed amazing confidence in their presentation skills. Hannah Gooding, who introduced The Sixth Form College, Farnborough to the 500 participants in fluent French, explained that young people across the EU all seemed to be facing similar problems. “In my working group, we all felt that national governments were not doing enough to deal with issues such as youth unemployment.”

Adam Slade, Curriculum Manager for Government & Politics, was overwhelmed by how articulate the Farnborough students were. “The confidence of our students to take a full role in such a diverse range of debates was really quite superb. The unique insights our students gained made this a truly rewarding experience for all.”

Flo Stidard commented that the whole discussion was a real eye-opener, “I didn’t realise how different the various EU political systems were. We heard about different countries: from the Swedes who boasted 87% turnout in their last election, a system of compulsory voting in Belgium and stories of corruption in Poland.”

Alex Hylan agreed, and commented that the event generated interesting perspectives from a range of political perspectives, “..such as the liberal attitude in the Netherlands to soft drugs.”

Makena Micheni, who became rapporteur for her group, enjoyed learning about the decision-making process within the EU. “This experience gave me a really good understanding of how the EU political system works, how decisions are passed, and the difficulties presented by the language barriers.”

Alex Hylan agreed, “…we had to speak slower, be concise in what we were saying…”

Aaron Sheffras, who had a key role during the committee stage as he was the group’s rapporteur discussing democracy and citizenship, highlighted the difficulty of “…getting people to stick to the point!”

While the event was enjoyed by all, not all students were convinced by the federalist flavour of much of the discussion. “We heard Austrians talking about the merits of a United States of Europe” explained a horrified Sandy Prosser, “…everyone appeared to be wanting the EU to acquire yet more powers.” Rob Greig shared Sandy’s concern, and found it difficult to reach agreement when it came to austerity measures, “…the thought of the EU cutting its budget was only really agreed on by the UK and German delegates.”

At the end of the day each class had produced a law to help prevent the spread of the disease.  Studetns, representing their class,  produced powerpoint presentation which were delivered to the whole year group in the Assembly Hall.  A final vote was taken to choose the best law.  It was then fed into the simulator and resulted in 36 million citizens losing their lives to the disease.  Would a different law hav seen less people die ? Find out by trying the resource in your school or just experiment using the online simulator.  Do let us know the result!

Comments from teacher Wendy Hildreth: 

“You have made a very good pack which can be delivered by non-specialists and specialists alike and can be taken at many different levels.  I am hoping that having put in all the work that we can run the same thing next year.  The students and teachers thoroughly enjoyed working through the Crisis Point scenario”.

Judith Scott, Rawlett Community Sports College, Tamworth, Staffordshire.

A group of Sixth Form students from the South West took part in a Euroscola Day at the European Parliament in Strasbourg on 12 March. 

This is the fifth year that a group of Sixth Form students from the South West have competed for a place on a visit to the Euroscola Day at the European Parliament in Strasbourg. Back in December 35 students from 9 schools (Callington CC, Hele’s, DHSG, DHSB, Plymstock, Coombe Dean, PHSG, Ivybridge CC and Torquay Boys Grammar) competed for 25 places by presenting their views on a European issue, in French, and answering questions from a judging panel. The visit to Strasbourg took place on 11th – 14th March, with Euroscola Day on Friday, 12th March when the students took the place of MEPs in the ‘hémicycle’. They discussed a number of European issues both in groups with their peers from the other European member states, and in a plenary session, and also asked questions of a panel of experts including an MEP and Parliament officials. This year was even more successful than previous ones since, according to the party leader, Mrs. Wolstencroft, the Brits certainly took over in their eagerness to lead discussion groups (we had 2 out of the 6 group Presidents), one reporter, and almost all the students took the opportunity to ask questions in the plenary – not an easy task in front of 500 young people. The following day the whole group descended on the square in front of the cathedral in Strasbourg and did a survey of people’s views on Europe – all in French! The following is a selection of their feedback on the Euroscola experience.

Jon Allsop (DHSB): I suppose I’ve always been quite pro-Europe and so in that respect the day didn’t exactly revolutionise my views, it rather affirmed what I already believed. I am a firm believer that most British Euroscepticism is based on xenophobia, media scaremongering and general ignorance and completely reject the view that the EU is undemocratic. I accept that the EU needs to have certain key competences (purely for the reason that intergovernmentalism doesn’t completely work in anything other than an ideal world), although do think that we should be wary of federalism. Euroscola day really helped me to justify this viewpoint, as I was able to see for myself that the cultural differences dividing each different European people were tangible enough to render a single European government an impracticality. This was reflected in the findings of my Commission, the majority of whom voted to keep Europe as it is at the moment. Euroscola day helped me to realise that European problems can be solved both diplomatically, democratically and independently of certain binding agreements, although it seems to me to be clearer than ever that a federal European ’super-state’ would create more problems than it would solve. Europe should now work towards combatting negative perceptions of its work, in order to turn itself into a more coherent and credible authority on the world stage.

Fran Daykin (DHSG): Euroscola was a really amazing experience; people were so willing to take part in the day’s events that making friends was easier than expected- I was even lucky enough to get invited to Belgium.
Presenting the group alongside Rob from Ivybridge was a really daunting yet rewarding experience. Having represented your group in front of the entire Hemicycle leaves you feeling ready for anything and as a consequence I was confident enough to get very vocal in the group debates.

 I now have a further understanding of the political setup in the European Parliament and as a result feel like an EU citizen which wasn’t the case before. I think knowing what goes on in the European Parliament and how it effects you really makes a difference.
During the ‘sondage’ it was clear from the answers the participants gave with regard to Britain that our country as a member of the EU is viewed to be selfish. This has made me feel like I need to make others aware of what goes on in the European Parliament; however getting your friends to listen to you talking about politics proves no easy feat!

Laura Cheney (Coombe Dean): I think that my experience didn’t make me feel any more European, as I have always thought of myself as European, but I do think that I am more aware of how unwilling England/Britain as a whole is to participate in Europe, which I think is a shame as it has so much to offer everyone.

Rhys Hancock (from Heles School and one of the group president’s): On the 12th of April 2010 I was lucky enough to be able to visit the European Parliament in Strasbourg, France. On arrival each country was introduced and there was a cheer from every corner of the room as their names were read out. Then came a chance to ask questions in the Hemicycle used by the real MEPs. After lunch we had to team up with 3 other students from all across Europe to enter a competition of language and knowledge, it was a challenging experience but one which used my communication and negotiation skills.
We were then split into our groups for a debate on 6 different subjects. Here I was elected as the president of my group and had the amazing opportunity to conduct a debate with about 100 people from all over Europe. I can assure you, it was a very nerve-racking situation but once I had settled in and had my reporter, from Portugal, by my side I soon got the feeling of how to control a large group of very opinionated teenagers.

Again the nerves built up as I had to present our ideas and answer questions from the floor of 600 people in the Hemicycle, trying to convince the entire room I knew what I was talking about is very hard to do but something I will definitely not forget!

I even managed to come away with a number of contact details of students from Portugal to Romania and even Estonia and I often speak to them online and am even looking into having one person over to stay to practice their English as we get on so well.

I most definitely feel more European now in comparison to before I went on the trip. I also realised how all the stereotypes which we are brought up to believe are really not true and it was funny to learn of some of the stereotypes Europeans have of the British! As for my views on Europe, I now believe it is a great opportunity to build relationships and is the future and therefore something which needs lots of support and development especially from the public.All in all it was an experience which I will never forget and something which has made me so grateful to those who made it possible.

Crisis Point is a fantastic new (and free!) resource to help teach citizenship in schools for years 7 – 12.  It works as a collapsed timetable event taking a day to play for a whole year group or slightly less if you want to break it into smaller groups.  Just follow the links to download the pack.

This great new resource is provided by The UK Office of the European Parliament and aims to help students and teachers get a better understanding of some of the basics of just what the European Parliament is and does, as well as letting students put themselves into the  shoes of MEPs for the day.

Here’s a few snapshots of some of the parts to the day: