Delivering the engage strand | Secondary school

Key topics

• Roles and responsibilities of elected representatives and decision makers.
• How representation works and who represents you.
• Petitions, consultations and democratic participation.
• Contacting decision makers and holding representatives to account.

Why the Engage strand matters in secondary schools

Secondary learners are beginning to understand the nuance and complexity of the political world. By providing them structured opportunities to engage with decision makers, schools can help learners to further develop their political identities.

It is important to note that decision makers can refer to school or local community leaders, in addition to politicians at a local or national level. By helping learners to understand and interact with politicians and decision makers at all levels it can help to humanise those in power, while also building political trust. When learners understand who is in charge, and have opportunities to engage with them it builds their confidence and likelihood of future participation.

A key challenge to this strand is finding opportunities for learners to engage with decision makers. Meetings can also lead to dissatisfaction, or a belief that change is not happening fast enough.

To address these challenges:

• Start with local decision makers. Whether this is a school leader or a local councillor many of the decisions that most impact people in their day to day lives start with local politicians.
• Ensure learners are fully prepared for their meeting. Have learners research who they will meet with and write questions together.
• Reflect on the experience. Whether it is a meeting with a politician or taking part in a consultation, learners should be given time to evaluate the process, and to consider next steps. Help learners to understand that political change often takes time and continuous commitment, this is an important part of engaging with decision makers.

Finally, schools must also adhere to impartiality guidelines. When meeting with a decision maker or politician, schools should be clear about the goal, and explain that they are not promoting the person, their ideas, or their larger party affiliation by inviting them to speak with learners. After the meeting you may also want to discuss what was presented, offering different perspectives or ideas to learners.

My approach

This strand presents opportunities for learners to gain important knowledge about their elected representatives. I do this by:

• Encouraging learners to use the search engine ‘WriteToThem’ to navigate the email address of their local MP and to use a similar search engine for local councillors.
• Exploring the role of representatives and their key responsibilities including representing their constituents; debating important issues and providing accountability throughout government.
• Asking learners; “What would you like to improve in your area, and what issues are important to you?” Learners could then pool their top three issues and compose a class email to their elected representatives asking to support a change or idea.
• Inviting a representative in to answer questions from learners which could build skills and confidence in young people in holding decision-makers to account for their positions and actions.
• Learners can search the UK Parliament e-petitions website and explore popular petitions and find petitions linked to issues they care about or what the popular petitions are in their area. Learners to sign or start an e-petition on an issue they care about.

However you choose to introduce politicians and decision makers to learners, it is important that they know that democracy is based on representation, and that politicians should be held accountable by their constituents. Learners should feel empowered to ask questions and learn more about the people who represent them.

If you only do one thing…

Provide learners with an opportunity to meet with a decision maker or politician. Meetings help to demystify and humanise politicians, while also giving learners the chance to ask questions and make their voices heard.

Where this fits into the curriculum

• Tutor time -  Lessons can be scaffolded in multiple ways to compliment the promotion of British Values, and preparing learners for democratic life.
• Citizenship or PSHE lessons
• Assemblies - Invite a guest speaker such as an MP or local councillor to talk about their job and answer questions from learners.
• RE - Discussions about social and political issues.
• History - Make connections to historical politicians and decision makers. You could also provide perspective on how governments have changed throughout history. Finally, learners could also identify times in history where political participation led to change.
• English - There are opportunities here for cross curriculum collaboration. Learners could examine manifestos or speeches to identify elements of persuasion, or to assess what makes a good argument.

Key resources

If you have 30 minutes or less…

• Find your MP, UK Parliament - Ask learners to note on mini whiteboards or post-it notes what they already know about the role of MPs / what questions they would like to ask? Go to Find your MP, type in the school postcode and this will provide information to learners about their local MP. Highlight the email address, speaking record, contributions (written and spoken). Learners should know how to contact their MP, by the end of the session.
• Local and national government: who does what? The Electoral Commission and Simple Politics - If there is time, learners could start to reflect on responsibilities of decision-makers through this resource.

1 hour…

• People in Parliament: Secondary assembly, VotesForSchools - Use the full 1-hour lesson outlining the role of elected representatives in Parliament.

1-3 hours…

• Preparing to speak with a politician, The Politics Project - Invite a politician to meet with your learners and answer their prepared questions over a 45 to 60 minutes Q&A. In advance, use this resource in a lesson to help learners research the politician and prepare meaningful questions to ask.

4-6 hours / 6 hours plus…

• Preparing learners for a hustings, The Politics Project - If you have an election in the area your school is based in you can arrange a hustings. Though these resources were to prepare learners to take part in the 2026 Senedd election, they can be adapted to support young people to take part in any election.
• You could also plan for further lessons where learners will have the opportunity to discuss and collaborate on issues in their local area that they would like to improve and questions they might wish to ask their MP. You could use the ‘Preparing to speak with a Politician’ resource to support learners to write their question, and you could collate them and send them to a politician from the whole class email, or facilitate for older learners to do this independently.
• A further lesson could be centred on encouraging learners to engage in the democratic process of UK Parliamentary e-petitions. This can happen either with access to digital devices or through teacher-led online activity facilitating the exploration of popular petitions; petitions linked to issues learners care about; popular petitions in their area. They could also start an e-petition on an issue they care about.

Considerations for learners with additional needs

To build the confidence of all learners to interact with politicians and decision makers:

• Research decision makers in a variety of ways: Have learners find photos of decision makers, watch videos of them speaking, and engage with any social media they have.
• Provide multiple ways for learners to engage with politicians. Some may prefer to ask questions verbally, while others may prefer to submit written questions. You can also give learners various roles such as time keeper or note taker. Other learners could be responsible for drafting any follow-ups such as a letter.
• Have learners practice what they will say. They can do this with peers or with their teacher.
• Scaffold up to a meeting with a politician. Have meetings with school or local decision makers to practice writing and asking questions.