VOGBLOG.WALES

Following the creation of VOGBLOG.Wales, all youth cabinet blog posts will now be uploaded here.

VOG Blog has been created by the Vale of Glamorgan Council for schools to use to share important information about their school. 

Twinning Youth Exchange 2018

Tonight we made a super choir with our friends from #Rheinfelden #Fecamp #Mouscron

Such a fun rehearsal, hope our visitors enjoyed.

Big thanks to @vysvale @VOGCouncil @Leightonrowland pic.twitter.com/vlYMttq95m

— BarryMaleVoiceChoir (@BarryMaleVoice) July 30, 2018

As well as being a exhausting, it has been up to now a very successful week! Despite the initial rain and the German's flight being delayed, we all arrived safely and started introductions.  We play many games to learn everyone's name and nationalities, and before long we were speaking as well established friends.

The first day kicked off with lots of language activities and team building games, and the afternoon was dedicated to Welsh culture.  We went to Cardiff Bay and had a tour of the Senedd before arriving at the Civic Offices in Barry to have the official welcome by the Vale Mayor, Leader of the Council and Cabinet Member for Learning & Culture.  We went to Barry Island for chippy and then visited the Barry Male Voice Choir - "Delilah" has now become the anthem of the trip!

On Tuesday we started preparing for our big art mural and collecting ideas for the project.  We settled on a design that included landmarks from the Vale, Fecamp, Mouscron & Rheinfelden and wanted to include the colours of the flags.  Young people and the graffiti artists from The Hold Up will now start working on this project.  In the afternoon we went on a small DofE walk to show of the countryside in the Vale of Glamorgan and it's natural beauty!

Wednesday followed with some graffiti work, DJ-ing, beat boxing and street dancing.  It gave us the opportunity to try new things and improve our skills. In the afternoon we visited St Fagans Museum and went on the high ropes at Coed Lan.  We were able to show off our Welsh heritage and after the museum we went for a very British carvery.  Nobody had heard of a carvery before but they all enjoyed it!

Even though we are only half way through the Twinning Youth Exchange, we foresee this week being a tremendous success!! There are no issues with language and everyone is getting along and making friends!  We have put a lot of effort into welcoming our Twinning friends and can't wait for the rest of the week!

On we go!
Continuons!
Los Gehts!

Timebanking in the Vale

On the 16th of July we had our monthly meeting.  To begin with we met Mark Ellis, the Community Investment and Involvement Officer for the Council.  We took part in a workshop to learn more about the Vale Homes timebanking scheme, a scheme which rewards council tenants for volunteering in their community.  The scheme provides lots of opportunities for people of all ages to volunteer, develop skills and build confidence.  It rewards volunteers with timebanking credits, a credit looks like paper money and can be used to participate in activities across the Vale and the UK for free!! Some examples include painting balling in Cowbridge, watching a Barry Town United football game, Coconuts play centre and even Madam Tussauds in London.  Hopefully the scheme will be open to all people in the Vale in the future and it's something we definitely think more young people should get involved in and be rewarded for all the volunteering they do!

We also had a guest from Cardiff City Kicks Foundation, Zac.  Zac is hoping to set up a similar youth cabinet style project for his organisation.  Zac would like to bring together young people from the Premier Kicks programmes across South Wales, including Barry & Llantwit Major.  The idea is young people would have the chance to share any issues they're facing in their local communities, be involved in designing programmes, recruiting new staff and getting involved in the funding processes of the organisation.  We were able to give Zac lots of tips and advice on setting up a new group - we hope we were helpful!

Our first official meeting

We had our first official meeting as the Youth Cabinet 2018-19.  For our first meeting we had a busy agenda because we had to decide what work we would continue with in our new term of office and explore some potential new ideas.

We were all very eager to get started and have come up with some new ideas such as deciding to digitalise our meetings in order to cut down on paper use.  We discussed current issues affecting young people and would like to work towards increasing opportunities for young people to be trained in First Aid and improve our communication with schools.  We would also like to work towards a qualification as a group.  

Some members will also be attending the Unity Gender Equality Youth Conference in Cardiff this week and we look forward sharing what we learn with you.  

Youth Cabinet Induction Day

On Friday 1st June we met for the first time as a new Youth Cabinet and took part in an induction day to get to know each other; learn more about the role of the youth cabinet; difference decision-makers in the Vale of Glamorgan; and the structure of the Vale of Glamorgan Council.

We also met with Alun Cairns MP and talked about his role as Member of Parliament and Secretary of State for Wales.  We discussed lots of issues such as Brexit, Votes at 16 and the electrification of the rail network in Wales.  We also met Councillor Bob Penrose, Cabinet Member for Learning & Skills in the Vale of Glamorgan to learn more about his portfolio.  I think we will be working quite closely in the future.

We are looking forward to our first meeting as a newly elected youth cabinet in June to start planning thinking our term of office and what we want to work on.

Meet the new Youth Cabinet 2018-19

At last night's Vale Youth Forum meeting, members voted for the new Youth Cabinet.  The new Youth Cabinet will be in post until September 2019. The new Youth Cabinet members are:

• Daley Chapman, aged 17: representing Barry Comp & current Deputy Youth Mayor  
• Sana Malik, aged 15: representing Bryn Hafren
• Jules Trahearn-O'Brien, aged 16: representing Ysgol Gymraeg Bro Morgannwg 
• Ben Lloyd, aged 16: representing Cowbridge Comp
• Nikita Harrhy, aged 15: representing St Cyres
• Ushenka Rajapakse, aged 15: representing Cowbridge Comp
• Isaac Cramb, aged 12: representing St Richard Gwyn 

Au Revoir

On Monday night we had our final meeting of the elected Youth Cabinet 2017-18.  On Monday 30th April, all members of the Vale Youth Forum will have the chance to stand to become a Youth Cabinet member.  The next term of office will run from May 2018 until September 2019.  There are 7 Youth Cabinet positions available. 

At our last meeting we met with the Vale Cabinet for our termly meeting and we were able to update them on the work we have been involved in.  This included telling them about our recent meetings which have included raising young people's concerns about the Welsh Bacc, Pupil Funding and the proposed changes to the Youth Service.  We have also sent several letters to decision-makers explaining our views on these topics.   

We also shared with them our proposal to introduce new work experience placements within the Council for young people in Yr10 - Yr13.  They liked our idea and we will now be working with the officer in charge to try and make this happen.  

Finally we spent some time reviewing and evaluating the running of the Youth Cabinet and our term of office to make sure we can provide any advice and support to future Youth Cabinet members. 

Our final session will be on Friday to celebrate our term of office and say goodbye to several members who will be off to university in September.  

Our penultimate meeting

Two guest speakers attended our meeting. First to speak was Dr Vince Browne, the new Executive Headteacher at the new mixed school in Barry. He discussed the lack of funding for Vale schools. It has become a well known fact that pupils in the Vale receive the lowest amount of money per head from Welsh Government in the whole of Wales, and it has been this way for over five years. 

We questioned Dr Browne on the formula used to calculate funding, and he tells us that the data being used is from the early nineties, and that the formula itself has not been reviewed for almost twenty years. Other than the size of catchment areas, Welsh Government have not released a lot of information on how funding is calculated for different local authorities in Wales. Dr Browne continued by saying that in order to keep schools performances up, the council is having to give funding boosts to education by cutting other services. The low funding has a chain effect on many other services, the one most relevant to us being the Youth Service. 

Our second guest speaker was Rhys Jones, a Senior Youth Manager of the Vale Youth Service. He came to talk to us about the proposed changes to the Youth Service. There are to be many less part time jobs in the service, but the creation of several new full time posts. In addition, Llantwit Youth Centre is to be sold off to save money and because it needs a lot of money spent on it to make it more suitable for young people.  The Youth Service is still going to provide youth provision in the area but it would be run differently.  A group has been set up trying to save the youth provision too. 

Despite the commitment to keep the Youth Cabinet and Youth Action Groups as they are, and to press on with the youth exchange in summer, there is still a cloud of uncertainty above the Youth Service’s future and the way youth provisions will be run. The Youth Mayor & Vice Chair of the Vale Youth Forum will be attending the Learning and Culture Scrutiny Committee next Monday (26th March) where the youth service restructure will be on the agenda, and they will be asking questions on behalf of young people in the Vale. 

Other than these hot topics, we approved the draft plan of the work experience menu. We have ideas on the types of placements that we would like the Council to offer young people in Key Stage 4 & 5.  We now need to communicate this to the Council's relevent department. 

This was our penultimate youth cabinet meeting. The next meeting in April will be the last joint meeting with the Cabinet and the last meeting of our term of office. We agreed to hold the Youth Cabinet elections in late April by holding an extraordinary Vale Youth Forum meeting. This will get the new Youth Cabinet together before exams. We are continuing to press that individuals may make a video, pamphlets, give a speech or canvass in any other creative manner to enable a diversity of people to stand for election.  

What's on the menu?

At our Youth Cabinet meeting tonight we began to work on our idea to create a "Work Experience Menu" for young people across the Vale.  We would like young people to be given the opportunity to pick from a range of work experience placements available at the Vale of Glamorgan Council.  Not only would this give young people the opportunity to experience a potential future career and look amazing on our C.Vs, but it would also raise the profile of the Council as a future place to work.  Something that many young people do not consider! 

We began to draft what information should be given to young people; how young people could get involved; and the process they would have to go through; what the placements should involve; and what skills and opportunities young people should get out of it.  We can't wait to take our idea to the next Vale Youth Forum meeting and run it past the members for their input. 

We also discussed the recent stories in the media about the lack of funding pupils in the Vale receive, and we agreed we would like to find out more information about this and invite Dr Brown to our next meeting.  This follows the recent letter sent out to all parents in the Vale. 

We also completed the National Assembly for Wales' consultation on removing the 'defence of reasonable punishment' and discussed how it would protect children's rights covered in the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (UNCRC).  The consultation is open until 2nd April 2018.

#Vote100

Great to celebrate 100 years since *some* women had the right to vote! #Vote100

And now Wales will give the right to vote to young people aged 16 and 17 - it get's even better! This was announced by the Cabinet Secretary for Local Government and Public Services on 30th January. Read more here.

Our Welsh Baccalaureate Meeting

This month we were glad to welcome some professionals from the world of the Welsh Baccalaureate (W.B) to answer some of our questions.  

At our meeting we had representatives from WJEC and Welsh Government, as well as Cllr Bob Penrose, Cabinet Member for Learning and Culture, and David Davies, Head of Achievement for All at the Vale of Glamorgan Council.  We learnt more about the qualification, including the different levels and requirements, and we were able to question professionals on some concerns that young people had raised to us directly.   

Universities - We requested information about how universities value the W.B.  From our presentation from WJEC it was clear that the uptake in Welsh universities is significantly higher than the rest of the country.  It was also evident that there has been a growing interest from English universities. However, it became clear that not all departments in all universities value the W.B the same, and this is reflected in the offers that they make students.  The representative from WJEC showed several examples of where the qualification was included in an offer.  We are concerned that a lot of universities aren’t fully on board with the qualification being worth that of a full A-Level and that many consider another A-Level to be more valuable than the W.B.  We feel that more work needs to be done to raise the profile of the qualification and ensure more departments in more universities accept it.  

The Syllabus - The W.B syllabus was created by WJEC and throughout the presentation it appeared really good and everything we would look for in order to prepare us for the world of work, yet this isn’t the experience of young people.  The W.B doesn’t transfer into a qualification that inspires and improves the skills of young people as young people have expressed their views to us that they don’t see the point in the W.B.  They don’t know what they are learning!  Hopefully, after a period of time we will be able to see the long term effects of the W.B.  However, some students feel that a fourth A-Level would be more beneficial.  Teachers, students and schools all have finite resources, time and money and feedback from young people suggests that the W.B impacts on the time on other subjects that could be more useful to them.  We find ourselves in a vicious cycle where due to poor experiences and quality; students, teachers and universities do not like it, which results in the disillusionment of the qualification. 

The Political Aspect - We also feel like there is a political aspect to the W.B that interferes with students' learning. The W.B belongs to Wales, it’s something no other country has, and it is something to rival English equivalents. It may look good on paper for Wales, but unfortunately we think it doesn’t translate into reality.  Furthermore, from understanding the roles of different organisations who are responsible for the W.B (WJEC, Welsh Government and Qualifications Wales) who is ultimately accountable and who will take responsibility for making much needed improvements?         

Key Skills - As you may know, the aim of the W.B is to "enable learners to develop and demonstrate an understanding and proficiency in the 7 essential and employable skills".  These are believed to be universal and long lasting.  We were told that the W.B aims to show a student a set of skills rather than their ability to pass exams.  We believe that the skills taught through the W.B overlap too heavily with other areas of the curriculum.  We believe that the skills would better be developed if integrated into the curriculum.  However, WJEC and Welsh Government believe that is more beneficial to represent them separately in this qualification.  Young people have expressed that these skills are not taught properly and may be too broad and vague to be assessed properly and consistently.   

No Teacher Training - During our meeting we discovered that teachers allocated to W.B classes do not receive any teacher training specific to the qualification.  This means that a teacher trained to teach geography at A-Level can be your W.B teacher without being trained in the qualification or even taught why it is important.  This isn’t the case for any other subject, is it? We believe this could lead to uninspiring teachers who feel forced to teach a course they don’t understand, having to lead a classroom without knowing the best way to transfer the skills included in the course.  We discussed this problem at the meeting and although resources are available on the WJEC website, we came to the conclusion that this could be the root of many of the problems with the course; including pupils having varying experiences of the qualification, feeling like the teacher don’t care, and not even knowing the content of the course and the skills they are learning. 

Employability - W.B makes us more employable but do employers understand the W.B?  Will they look at my C.V and value my W.B GCSE or A-Level? We understand that as a new qualification, employers and parents may be unaware of its importance.  We believe that more publicity and awareness raising is needed to promote the benefits of the qualification and ensure the W.B is seen as an equivalent to traditional GCSE and A-Level. 

Community Challenge - In response to a question regarding the Community Challenge and how it appears to have replaced work experience, WJEC stated they had no part to play in the discontinuation of previous Year 10 work experience, and also Welsh Government advised the Community Challenge is not meant to replace it.  Maybe it is a coincidence that the year work experience ended, the new W.B was introduced but many young people have raised concerns about this.  One of the main aims of the W.B is to prepare young people for the world of work, so surely sending young people into the work place for a week is the most effective way of doing this?  Both WJEC and Welsh Government explained the health and safety concerns surrounding work experience. We feel these concerns can be managed without detracting from the valuable experience these placements can bring, and have brought to many young people in the past. Furthermore, doesn’t the volunteering hours required as part of the Community Challenge raise the same health and safety concerns anyway?     

Grading - Why is the W.B graded differently to our other subjects? We raised this as a concern because it is confusing for students and parents.  This was seconded by parents in the room.  Wouldn’t it be easier to grade them using the normal A*-G grades.  We were told Qualifications Wales are carrying out a review of the qualification so maybe this is something they can consider?

As you can imagine, there was a lot more discussed at our meeting but we wanted to summarise a few points.  We’d also like to thank the representatives from WJEC and Welsh Government for attending and listening to our views.  We are hopeful we can work together in the near future to make positive changes for young people across Wales.  We’re also looking forward to working with the Cabinet Member for Learning and Culture and the Head of Achievement for All to improve young people’s experiences of W.B locally.