School News

Make Your Mark – UK Youth Parliament

We had Democracy week at the beginning of the month, which marked the launch of the campaign ‘Make your Mark’ run by UK Youth Parliament. UK Youth Parliament is made up of elected young people from each local authority across the UK. Elections happen between November and March every year, so if your child is interested in representing the voice of young people in Derbyshire Dales, then watch out for the application process over the next few months.

The aim of the UK Youth Parliament is to gather the views of young people across the country and give these views a voice, by lobbying for change and organising campaigns. They also meet with MPs and decision makers and every year, debate in the house of commons, the main concerns young people have.

The UK Youth Parliament are currently in the process of gathering the views of young people nationally, so that they can determine which are the most important issues to campaign on, for the year ahead. The UK Youth Parliament have identified 10 issues which are currently concerning young people and they want all 11-18 years across the country to vote on the issue which concerns them the most. The issues which receive the most votes will be the focus of the UK Youth parliament’s 2012 campaigns. The 10 issues are:

1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10. Increasing mental health for young people Free university Tackling child poverty Stop plastic pollution Increase racial awareness in the curriculum Take action on the climate emergency Lower voting age to 16 Tackle discrimination and hate crime in the UK Include young people in the plan for COVID-19 recovery Protect human rights law after Brexit

Please encourage your child to log onto the UK Youth Parliament web page to cast their vote. They will complete a virtual ballot paper, which asks 11-18 year olds to vote on one of the above UKwide topics, plus one local topic that is most important to them.

Voting closes on 30 November 2020 - https://www.ukparliamentweek.org/en/make-your-mark

Marie Duncan Student Voice and Activism Champion

Christmas hamper appeal

Children in Need

This year we were unable to run our usual fundraising activities for Children in Need due to Covid restrictions. However, we did hold our non-uniform day and raised a total of £1,478.21 for Children in Need from collection buckets at the entrance to school.

Thank you to everyone who contributed and to staff who braved the cold with collection buckets at the front of school.

Mr Hodkin was particularly delighted at wearing his Pudsey headband as you can see from his enthusiastic smile!