Inspire, Debate, Change trained and supported university students to deliver a series of civil education workshops to primary school pupils, developing their critical thinking skills and ultimately empowering the next generation of active citizens.
What is Inspire, Debate, Change?
If young people are introduced to civic engagement they will develop critical thinking skills and become more engaged citizens.
The interactive workshops include building confidence debating, introducing the UK political system and exploring ways to make change. We work with schools with a high proportion of pupils on pupil premium and with English as a second language to identify pupils who will benefit most from the intervention.
The students we work with are trained and supported to deliver engaging, apolitical workshops.
What’s the impact?
Inspire, Debate, Change aims to empower the next generation of active citizens through interactive civil education workshops. To meet this aim we ensure every young person who takes part in the programme:
- Develops critical thinking and problem solving skills
- Feels more informed about social issues and how to make change
- Are motivated to make change
- Have more information about the UK political system
To achieve this our students are trained to create an environment which is safe, supported, respectful, interesting and challenging. An environment which supports key social and emotional skill development.
In 2022-23
90%
students agreed Young people showed increased confidence to debate their beliefs with their peers
90%
students agreed Inspire, Debate, Change had changed their perception of working in civic education
80%
students agreed young people show increased knowledge of the UK political system
[Inspire, Debate Change] helped me gain confidence in myself as a leader and proved that I could still maintain a personal relationship with the young people while in a leadership role. The confidence I gained from my role with IDC has translated to a greater self-assurance in my everyday life. It has also encouraged me to do attempt more new things without the fear of failure.
Chante O’Shaughnessy, Southampton Hub volunteer
why should we deliver inspire, debate, change with your university?
What our university partners value about Inspire, Debate, Change includes:
- Supporting university strategic priorities. Our programme has dual impact: along with supporting civic opportunities for young people, our student outcomes can form part of your institution’s approach to educational gains as part of the TEF, and support students’ wellbeing, belonging, and employability skills.
- Targeted support in a challenging civic context. With many councils facing hardship and potential bankruptcy, civically focused programmes like Inspire, Debate, Change which encourage participation by young people have never been more important to ensure young people have a voice in society. See our quote from Head of Service for Southampton City Council, Chris Brown, below about Inspire, Debate, Change’s impact and need.
- Building internal staff capacity and expertise. Inspire, Debate, Change is a volunteering programme that reaches 15-30 university students a year at our Hubs. For many Widening Participation, Education or Social Sciences teams, delivering a programme at this scale with internal staffing is challenging. Partnership with us enables your institution to kickstart this delivery, build local connections, and use our tried and tested formula. Our external strategy means if you want to internalise the work, we can help – ask us about handover and quality assurance support.
Inspire, Debate, Change delivery is part of our ‘Kickstart’, ‘Build’ and ‘Embed’ framework.
Our schools are under immense pressure to deliver a whole variety of different requirements educationally and socially. But I’m not sure there is ever clear space there to talk about civic involvement, democracy and some of the things that are really important. [Inspire, Debate, Change is] working with a particular generation, and a Covid affected generation, about how they understand the world works … which creates that opportunity to understand how they will operate as adults and how they can become involved in democratic processes going forward.
Chris Brown, Head of Service for Southampton City Council