COVID-19 for Children and Young People: Our Asks to the Scottish Government

In March, we resumed workshops for STAGE 2 of APiC’s COVID-19 Project with Children and Young People in Scotland. Supported by the Children and Young People’s Commissioner Scotland (CYPCS). ScotYouthandCOVID2 has recalled the Young Consultants who participated in our original project .

APiC’s original self-funded study in April/May 2020 was a participant-led project and report that was one of the only truly participatory projects held with children and young people at that time. It set out the important changes and challenges young Scots were experiencing, including proposed solutions. It involved teams from Aberdeen, Edinburgh, Glasgow, and (Rural) Stirlingshire and Falkirk, each with 4-6 boys and girls, aged 10-16 years. Earth in Common, the Children’s Parliament Imagining Aberdeen programme, Denny High School, Northfield Academy and Manor Park Primary School helped us with the recruitment.

#ScotYouthandCOVID2: Workshop 6

We reported in the last blog on workshop 6 on our Young Consultants conversations with the Children and Young People’s Commissioner for Scotland, Bruce Adamson and his Head of Strategy, Gina Wilson.

This discussion surfaced some new insights about the return to school, and other things, including:

  • The ‘missing voices’ from the 2020 transitions.
  • The challenge of planning for an uncertain future.
  • The Assessments nightmare
  • It was good to be back at school
  • Ever-changing rules at school was increasing apathy and risk

In this blog, we reflect further on outcomes of the project, by detailing the Asks for the new Scottish Government administration that have emerged from our Young Consultants across the course of our ongoing dialogue. We list these under key headings and sub themes,  broadly ordered by our Young Consultant’s priorities. Each Ask is a starting point for further conversation, giving vital insights into the experiences, wishes and current and future needs of a diverse set of young people over the course of the COVID-19 Pandemic. 

Our Asks to the Scottish Government

Motivation and School

  1. We find it extremely difficult to learn without a teacher being there. In periods of remote learning, we need to find a way to have live video teaching available for everyone.
  2. We understand that remote schooling is difficult for teachers too, but we need quick, clear and thoughtful feedback. It really matters for helping us understand how we’re doing, feeling valued, and motivating us to continue working hard.
  3. Some teachers have gone the extra mile for us during lockdown and it’s made a huge difference. Let’s learn what has worked well and what has worked less well so that we know what to do in future.
  4. We know some of our teachers have been really struggling during the pandemic. You need to support them to support us and hear their concerns in times of crisis and uncertainty.
  5. Our schools and teachers need to work together to ensure our combined workload and schedule is not overwhelming.
  6. Sometimes we need additional support to do well at school. We would welcome optional sessions in school where we can talk about what is going well and less well for us and receive help with tasks when we need it.
  7. We often have important and useful views on things outside of school. We would welcome discussion groups in-school so we can give Government information on what is happening for us and we can be involved more in improvements.

Addressing Inequalities

  1. Take concerted action on addressing the Gender Pay Gap and school and workplace discrimination and bullying. This currently affects too many people
  2. Commit to better and more meaningful engagement between Government and children and young people, recognising the wide range of issues that affect us and the interests we have in our shared future.

Skills and Employment

  1. Ensure safe and secure employment and good work experience opportunities for everyone. We are worried about our futures and want to know that our skills and contributions will be valued when we leave school.
  2. Ensure children and young people also get a good quality education on genuinely useful life skills such effective money management, understanding bills and taxes, cooking, and how mortgages and other types of finance work.

Local Issues

  1. We want to feel safe and included where we live. Work with us to hear and understand issues in our local areas and improve opportunities for all children and young people.
  2. Improve rubbish collection, maintenance of public space, and educate people about protecting the environment and keeping places clean. It affects our wellbeing.

Exam Years with High Workload and Stress

  1. Redesign assessment processes so that we are judged on the work we’ve done across the course of a year instead of exams at the end.
  2. Provide clear guidance to schools to ensure there is no confusion, changing or duplication of materials needed to make a fair and accurate assessment of our progress.
  3. Work with young people to design an exam assessments system that is fairer and more effective for S4-S6, which learns from the stress and uncertainty during the pandemic.
  4. Have a clear national education plan in place for crisis situations, including how assessments will be structured and organised.

Well-being

For Us

  1. Setup a helpline for children and young people to ring to discuss our wellbeing and get information and advice to help improve it.
  2. Understand that we’ve had a really difficult year and we need time and space to recover. Remote schooling has been challenging and it’s often not been clear what has been expected of us.
  3. Focus on creating opportunities for us to feel young again and be childish.
  4. Improve mental health support and services for us. Long waiting lists are bad for the wellbeing of ourselves, friends and families.

For All

  1. Improve mental health Services for everyone and address loneliness. This is about both services for people in current need and making sure people feel included and supported in society to tackle the causes of poor mental health.
  2. Take preventative action on drug and alcohol misuse by supporting all young people to have good mental health and make healthy choices.
  3. Improve help and support for people of all ages that are suffering the effects of drug and alcohol misuse. The high rate of drug-related deaths worries us and seeing drug and alcohol misuse in our neighbourhoods can make us worried about going outside by ourselves.

Recovery

  1. Conduct a thorough and full Inquiry of what happened during the COVID-19 pandemic so that we can understand and genuinely learn from experience.
  2. Ensure a transition out of the pandemic that allows everyone to get the rest and leisure they have been missing.

Uncertainty

  1. Decision-makers need to communicate clearly and effectively. Give us the information we need when we need it, and in a clear form. We want to hear information directly, but we also only need to know what is relevant to us so keep it concise, tailored and in clear language.
  2. As far as possible, wait until you can give information that you are 100% clear is accurate and won’t change. and if a decision is uncertain then tell us why and inform us about the decision-making process. Sudden and unclear changes in decisions affect our wellbeing.
  3. Consider setting up and/or supporting young people to setup a news organisation that delivers clear, accurate, and engaging news that we need to know. This could be like a young person’s version of Newsround to help combat fake news and misinformation on social media. We want a feature where we can ask something from social media to be fact-checked, so we don’t spread or get worried by misinformation.
  4. During the remainder of the pandemic, keep high risk activities closed and get everyone vaccinated quickly. Prioritise outdoor activities that improve wellbeing and be really clear on the schedule and reasons behind it.

The Transition from Primary to Secondary School

  1. Transitions are really important to us. Ensure there are good transitions between primary school to secondary school by:
    1. Asking us directly about our concerns or worries and working together to find solutions.
    2. Making sure everyone has opportunities to meet with new teachers in small groups, even if they can’t go to new school buildings.

Climate Change

  1. Address the climate emergency by improving our production and use of renewable sources of energy and transitioning to using electric cars only.
  2. Protect and enhance nature across the country.
  3. More needs to be done to educate people about the causes and impacts of climate change, and practical things we can learn and do to adapt to its effects.

What’s Next?

Next week we will release a blog detailing the key considerations and process of a strategy for gaining further support and filling any gaps in our Young Consultant’s Asks. This was devised with our Young Consultants at the end of workshop 6.  We then hope to transform these Asks into a Manifesto for Change that represents as many of Scotland’s children and young people as possible. We will also be writing a report that chronicles how we got to this point and explore the themes and experiences that underlie our outputs in June.

We will be posting frequent updates from the Young Consultants over the course of the project, and also publish a report of all findings in May so follow us on Twitter for updates.

Read “#ScotYouthandCOVID: Children and young people’s participation in crisis” with the new foreword by the Children and Young People’s Commissioner Scotland, Bruce Adamson.

Read our blogs covering Stage 1 of this project. 

Find out about other APiC projects.