DIGITAL SURGERIES

Watch a Digital surgery in action →

Digital Surgeries address a key issue that defines our democratic system today: the breakdown in the relationship between young people and politicians.

The programme aims to transform the way that young people and politicians interact. Our goal is simple – we want every young person during their time at school to have a meaningful, informed interaction with their local, regional or national representatives.

We support schools to run Digital Surgeries, connecting students and politicians using online platforms, such as Teams and Zoom. This gives students a rare chance to engage with their politicians, building understanding and relationships on both sides that lead to real and tangible changes in communities.

For politicians, Digital Surgeries provide an opportunity to represent their young constituents more effectively and 95% of those who have taken part want to do more.

“Thanks again for the opportunity and we loved being involved.
The students had such a positive experience and felt really heard.”

— Stephanie Lonsdale - deputy head at East Manchester Academy

How it works

Digital Surgeries are designed to save time for teachers and politicians. We know how busy both can be, so we want to make engagement simple and easy. The programme takes four teaching hours to deliver: three hours of workshops and one for the Digital Surgery. Our training and support enables students and politicians to get the most out of every interaction. It ensures that teachers can deliver surgeries with their students with confidence and go on to make surgeries part of their everyday teaching.

Train to become an expert digital facilitator through our Digital Surgeries CPD

We train teachers to prepare and support students to engage digitally with their elected representatives. Teachers will be supported to design a scheme of work for students from our specialised resources and trained to be expert digital facilitators. 

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Use our resources to deliver workshops to your students

Teachers deliver three hours of preparatory workshops. These can be delivered to suit the school in either a drop-down day or integrated into the timetable. The programme can be easily integrated into everyday teaching as part of Citizenship or A Level Government and Politics, and aligns with requirements on Prevent, Fundamental British Values and Spiritual, Moral, Social and Cultural development (SMSC).

Our main Digital Surgery programme gives students an introduction to British politics, but you can also deliver a range of Thematic Programmes on other topics.

Deliver first-class digital surgeries with local, regional, national politicians that represent your school

Teachers deliver a Digital Surgery, connecting their students with a local, regional or national politician via Teams, Zoom or a similar platform. We provide support for each Digital Surgery and help to capture the interactions for social channels and other promotional content.

Track any “pledges” that politicians make to your students

When politicians offer to do something on behalf of the students we log it as a “Pledge” and help the politician to communicate the outcome with the school.

you can see some recent pledges here →

Stay connected and join the Digital Surgeries Network

Once trained our teachers join our Digital Surgeries Network, with many choosing to come on to our Digital Surgeries Subscription and continue to deliver the programme. We offer a range of new opportunities and training to this network.

Digital Dialogue:
#BeeWelL

We are supporting the #BeeWell programme in Greater Manchester to help young people have discussions with local leaders about wellbeing.

#BeeWell is a pioneering, youth-centred wellbeing project run by the Greater Manchester Combined Authority (GMCA), the University of Manchester, the Anna Freud Centre, and the Gregson Family Foundation.

In the summer of 2022 The Politics Project facilitated 10 Digital Dialogue: #BeeWell conversations between politicians and Year 8 students across the 10 Local Authorities in Greater Manchester: Bolton, Bury, Manchester, Oldham, Salford, Stockport, Tameside, Trafford, Rochdale, and Wigan. You can read more about the findings from those sessions here.

In the spring of 2023 we will be delivering more Digital Dialogue: #BeeWell sessions, this time with Year 9 students.

Digital Dialogue: #BeeWell sessions enable students to connect with the decision-makers who represent children’s service or education in their local authority to discuss the issues and ideas that have arisen from the #BeeWell data for the young people.

Prior to these sessions, schools use our resources to explore the #BeeWell data and prepare for discussions with local leaders. After each engagement, we are following up on any agreed actions to make sure that the discussions turn into lasting change.

If you are a school in Greater Manchester taking part in #BeeWell and would like to get involved in the programme in the 2022/2023 academic year then get in touch with us at ian@thepoliticsproject.org.uk .

DEMOCRACY CLASSROOM

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Democracy Classroom first started in 2017 when a group of non-partisan democratic education organisations came together to support schools to engage in the 2017 General Election. We created an online hub that made it easier for schools to navigate the support available across the sector. 

Four years and several elections later, the network has expanded to over 40 organisations and this website now supports hundreds of resources, training opportunities and events.

By bringing all this information together, we help teachers and practitioners support young people to understand and engage in elections.

We aim to provide clear, non-partisan information and we check all of our content for political bias and quality before it is added to the site.

Visit the site →

SELECT COMMITTEEs

In collaboration with the UK Parliament Select Committee Engagement Team we support Select Committees to engage with young people as part of their evidence gathering. To date, we have supported young people to give evidence on a range of issues from Transport, Diversity, Education and News Literacy. 

We supported the committees by recruiting the schools to take part, developing bespoke learning resources, supporting the students and teachers, and aiding with facilitation and technical support.

If you are a teacher and are interested in working with us to support your students to give evidence to a committee then please register your interest here and we will be in touch when an opportunity arises.

Case study: The Petitions Committee inquiry into diversity in the curriculum

In April 2021 we supported 7 schools to engage in listening sessions with the Petitions Committee on diversity in schools. We held three 90 minute sessions, with Primary, Secondary and Sixth Form students in which we supported the students to share their views and experiences on diversity in the curriculum and on issues of diversity and race in the school community more broadly. Each session started with short presentations from the students which then lead to a general Q and A on a range of topics.  We invited 3-5 students from each school to take part in the sessions and supported each with a three-hour pack of bespoke resources to support their students to prepare for the sessions.

Following these sessions, two of the schools were invited to give evidence directly to members of the Petitions Committee and the Women and Equalities Committee. All of the sessions were very impactful and provided a rare opportunity for students to inform the direction of policymaking at a national level.