Schools Question Time Challenge 2009
Ten
UK schools have today been announced as finalists for the Schools Question Time Challenge. Each will
receive a £250 grant from the
Institute for Citizenship, supported by Parliament’s Education Service, to be used in
the next stage of the Challenge. The schools are:
- Bourne Grammar School, Bourne, Lincolnshire
- Bristol Grammar School –Bristol,
South West
- Gwernyfed High School, Powys, Brecon, Wales
- Ilford Ursuline High School,
Ilford, London
- John Hampden Grammar School,
High Wycombe, Buckinghamshire
- Kingsmeadow Community School,
Dunston, Cumbria
- Pates Grammar School, Cheltenham,
Gloucestershire
- SRC Bede Sixth Form Billingham, Stockton-on-Tees
- Tiffin Girls School, Kingston-upon-Thames, Surrey
- Wolverhampton Girls' High School, Wolverhampton, West
Midlands
Schools entered
the Challenge online, describing the issues they would discuss during their
ideal Question Time and the panel
they would choose to debate those issues. The 10 finalists selected today will
use their £250 grant to stage their own local Question Time event, and will receive professional support in
staging the event during a Schools Question
Time Challenge workshop.
A team of judges
will visit each finalist school to attend and evaluate their Question Time event and assess how well
they have applied the principles of citizenship. From the 10 finalist schools,
four winners will be chosen to work with David
Dimbleby and the Question
Time production team to produce an edition BBC Question Time programme, to be broadcast in the summer of 2009 on
BBC ONE. Winners will be involved in all aspects of production, from making
editorial decisions to researching and taking on production roles for the
programme.
David Dimbleby said: "The end of the boom years, with the
collapse of our banking system and the recession, have focused the minds of
young people as never before on the workings of our government, parliament and
the economy. It is reflected in the high quality of entries for this
year's Schools Question Time, which have been inspired by the challenge to find
a better way of managing the future than we have the past. The election
of Barack Obama in the United States, offering the hope of change, has also
sparked a greater interest in politics and political debate. The entries
reflect a determination to tackle the big issues and ask the key questions which
will help shape the decade ahead."
About the Challenge
The challenge gives students aged 14 to 18
the chance to run a Question Time-style event in their own school and
ultimately win one of a number of places working alongside David Dimbleby and
the Question Time production team next summer.
The Challenge builds confidence,
emphasising young people’s roles and responsibilities, and their right to
question decision makers and hold them to account. It clearly demonstrates that
young people, too, are stakeholders in society.
The schools challenge is a three-stage
process and the Schools Question Time programme is the final product of a far
wider education initiative. The broader aim is to help schools
nationwide by supporting the citizenship curriculum, helping improve students'
public speaking and listening skills, and engaging young people in society and
politics.
The Political Literacy and Citizenship Life
Skills initiative is supported by Parliament’s Education Service, the Institute
for Citizenship and the BBC.
For more information and to download free Citizenship resources please see: www.schoolsquestiontime.org
Initially schools will be invited to
register for a free online education resource pack to support directly the
teaching of citizenship and political literacy for secondary school pupils in
the classroom. The pack includes a new Politics and Parliament Toolkit that
includes lesson plans on the
different roles of Parliament and Government and voting rights and the reasons
why people do or do not vote.
The resource pack also provides guidance
for taking part in the second part of the challenge in which schools are
invited to stage their own debates based upon the popular BBC One Question Time
format.
Judges will select 10 regional winners and
assess the schools as they produce their own Question Time events. Four winning schools from across the UK are then
selected to nominate two pupils each to join the team producing the Schools
Question Time programme in July 2009.
These eight students will be responsible
for making key editorial decisions as well as taking on production roles such
as editor, audience producers, panel producers and online producer.
Enter the Schools QUESTION TIME Challenge
and your students could win the opportunity to help produce a real edition of
the BBC’s QUESTION TIME with David Dimbleby and the regular TV production team!
See www.schoolsquestiontime.org
for more details.
Partners Websites:
Schools Question Time Official Website
BBC Schools Question Time
Parliament's Education Service
