newsletter - Pershore High School

Pershore Youth CouncilPHS students are leading the wayamong their contemporaries aftersetting up a Youth Council toaddress the issues affectingyoung people in the town.The Council, which is made upof twelve PHS students agedbetween 13 and 18 years old, andthe Mayor of Pershore who willsit on the newly-formed Council‘ex-officio’ to maintain a linkbetween it and the Town Councilwere elected for one year byfellow students of the school.It is hoped that this earlyintroduction into how decisionsare made will encourage furtherparticipation by the youth in thelife of the town.Clive Corbett said: We spoke toPershore Town Council in Juneabout the prospect of setting upthe Youth Council and then eachyear group voted for two studentsto represent them on it. Ourstudents took it extremelyseriously and well over 200students from each year groupvoted. I am very proud of them.The only problem is that noteveryone who wanted to couldget involved. To that end we havealso established some form tutorunits to ensure more students areable to have their say. In total 18form tutor reps will report directlyto the Youth Council.Alex Smith was voted to beChairman of the Council,accompanied by Emma Hawtreeas Vice-Chairman.Alex said that he thought a YouthCouncil would be a good thing, tohelp young people become moreinvolved in local decision-making,and to bring their ideas to the fore.He said that the first couple ofmeetings went well and that theywere looking at new ideas, suchas bringing a new music festival toPershore.Emma said that not many peoplein their age group have the chanceto get involved and that it mayhelp change people’s ideas ofteenage stereotypes. She alsosaid that all the members of theCouncil, including the Chairmanand Vice-Chairman, were electedby the entire school and theywere all very proud to havebeen chosen.The Pershore Community Youth Council pictured with Chris Parsons, Mayor ofPershore, and Clive Corbett, Headteacher, outside Pershore Town Hall where themeetings will be held.The Mayor, Chris Parsons, wasimpressed with the way the newmembers conducted themselves insuch a professional way andconsidering what was best forPershore, not just for themselves.He said that the Youth Councilhave some new ideas which theyare bringing forward, such as ideasfor a music festival and morethought will be given to what theyoung people of Pershore wouldappreciate. The Youth Councilhave been bestowed with thehonour of taking charge of theswitch-on the Christmas lightsand is considering starting acompetition to find a winner toswitch on the lights this year,and making it into more of aceremony.Meetings will take place atPershore Town Hall on the firstThursday of each month, with thenext meeting scheduled to takeplace on 5th November.Democracy DayFriday 16 th October saw sevenPershore youth councillorsattend a democracy day atCounty Hall, Worcester.The day's activities includedfour speeches from MPs givingtheir views on issues,information about what politicsinvolved, how it all began, andwhy it is important. We werequestioned on how importantwe thought politics was byway of E-voting.The following students have beenelected as representatives:Year 8Briony WatkinsTidiahn WoodwardYear 9Jonathan JonesSophie HarbridgeYear 10Lucy YarnoldMark GrimesYear 11James DodsonRobert IrelandSixth FormDaniel HartEmma HawtreeAndrew PriceAlex SmithThe officers are as follows:Alex Smith (Chairman of theCommunity Youth Council)Emma Hawtree (Vice Chairman)This was similar to the keypadson 'Who Wants To Be AMillionaire'. The aim of thisexercise was to see how muchwe knew, and to give ouropinions. We were given timeat the end of the day to askquestions of the MPs beforewe were provided with a largebuffet lunch, which was verynice.by Daniel Hart, Year 1317