Welcome & Apologies
Draft inclusion policy
Gill told the youth council about her role involving people who are out of school. She told us Oldham’s inclusion policy which is being newly set after a day where Gill, the council and various other people took part in many conversations and heard a video clip with real voices of young people being excluded from the system. A survey was sent to schools and a group of 70 people started to produce a document. Gill showed the Youth Council a visual image of the meeting capturing everything that was said. She also told us that she didn’t want it to just be called ‘Oldham’s inclusion policy’ and would rather we came up with word that would encapsulate everything in the document. She told us that Councillor Chadderton endorsed the policy. Gill then talked the youth council through the policy, the policy involves : what inclusion means, the ambitions of the policy (and its link to the Oldham pledge and skills commission), principle to make sure all schools have been included everyone, in-school learning. Gill said the principles will be put in a document and given to headteachers of schools who will be held to account. The aim will be to include more young people and to stop all exclusions by 2020 – Gill said this was ambitious but she wanted a system where nobody was excluded. Broader alternative options, more of what is appropriate when needed, possible alternative provision school, and the various groups including SEN, looked after children etc vulnerable to being excluded – were all topics discussed in the policy. Gill then answered some questions from the youth council.
Get Oldham Working
Ellie came in and told us that the chief of the council tasked her to develop a work experience policy – Oldham residents get into employment work experience. She told us that a steering group will be set up. Up to now anyone could call get Oldham working to get a work experience opportunity. No policy is in place yet but a set policy is needed so people notice how to get work experience opportunities. There will be a list of opportunities and how people will be given the best placement for them. Schools will be given the opportunity to get a matching service and told us how some in contracts anyone can do a placement , other placements may only have 5 spaces – Ellie told us how the right person will be matched to the right company. Nothing is in place as of yet for companies to assure quality control placement where pupils will get the best experience and companies are clear about what the experience entails. Jodie pointed out that there are often work experience opportunities given to people just because they or their relatives know someone and as a result pupils from Rochdale and Bolton have been given work experience opportunities in Oldham – Ellie said the policy will mean people from Oldham to get opportunities in Oldham. The work experience opportunities will involve key interview techniques and shadowing opportunities. Ellie said she will be back with the final draft and back to get more ideas from the youth council.
Ally conference
Samah talked about the conference and what happened on the day to the youth councillors who were not there. She then talked about the ideas the students gave us on how to tackle discrimination. These ideas involved: dressing up and wearing masks, assemblies , songs to engage people, the use of social media using hashtags such as #allequal and #nohate, twitter, a snapchat filter, bitmojis, non-uniform days, badges, school trips, workshops to challenge stereotypes, films to be shown in assembly showing racism and how comments are normalized, debates and music video on tackling discrimination. The youth council agreed that we had to use theses ideas moving forward with our discrimination campaign
Stars in our eyes
Jodie talked through the ‘stars in our eyes’ event. It is an annual celebration of looked aafter children and care leavers. She told the Youth council how the council were corporate parents and so the event was to treat looked after young people and celebrate their achievements. The event will be on the 7th april 4:00-7:30pm. The youth council were asked whether anyone wanted to volunteer to help run the event.
Motion to full council
Jodie told the youth council that she needed plausible ideas to put forward in the motion to full council. Youth councillors were asked to think about what the motion could include.
AOB
Youth councillors will now need to put forward their names for events on a sheet of paper at meetings rather than online as that did not seem to work.
