School Sessions

School Sessions (or In-School Sessions as they are often referred to) are exactly what they sound like, small-scale sessions that take place at schools.

School Sessions generally follow the same structure as bigger session, which means that when you attend one you still get to experience committee work (where committees discuss their opinions on their assigned topic and express them in the form of a resolution) and general assembly (the grand debate that ends the event).

One big difference is however that a majority of the participants won’t be EYP members, instead they will be regular students at the school. They are also often shorter than regional or national sessions, normally lasting between 1-3 days. You don’t need any previous experience in order to organise a school session and you can do it even if you have never participated at one of our sessions before.

Anyone at a school, teachers or students, can take initiative if they want to host a session, but we encourage local boards in particular to take on this task. If you wish to organise a school session, you can start by checking out the information below. If you need more support, feel free to contact your nearest Regional Board!

Database for school sessions

Template for collecting committee preferences

Template with information for a welcome booklet

Template for resolution booklet

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Things to keep in mind for your school session

This list outlines the main steps that need to be taken in order to organise a school session. It is primarily targeted at students, however it can still be used by teachers even though not all points will be relevant. Everything on this list does not have to be done, and it does not include everything one can do before and during a session, it simply exists to provide support and inspiration. The list has been divided into three different parts that provide information on what to do in different stages of the process.

1. Foundation

This section aims to detail the work that should be done before the concept gets approved by the school

Decide on the practical aspects of the session. This means estimating how many people you think can participate at the session, how long the session should be and on which dates it should take place.

Figure out what your school can help you with. They could for example provide venues in the form of classrooms, technical material such as cameras and projectors, teachers that help organise it all and so on).   
                                                                           
Set a theme for the session. The theme could be anything from The Sustainable Development Goals to the effects of the pandemic. As long as the theme is politically neutral, relevant and broad it can be used.

Present your idea to your school! If your school has an EYP teacher it could be presented directly to them. If not, it could for example be done at a staff meeting for the school board or just to a teacher that you trust and you think would be interested in EYP.

2. Preparation

This section aims to detail the process between the concepts introduction and the start of the session.Start booking rooms. Classrooms are recommended for committee work and team building, while auditoriums (if available) work great for General Assembly

Find a team of people at your school. Working alone can be tough and in order to host a successful school session teamwork is necessary. Besides an organiser, the session also needs a president that leads the general assembly and a group of chairpersons that lead the work in the committees. It is also common to choose a few people that form a media team, that take photos of the session

Start preparing for academic work. This means deciding which committee topics should be discussed, how many committees there should be and allocating one chairperson responsible for each committee. If you have trouble coming up with ideas for topics, earlier examples can be found here. If you decide on a specific theme for the session, try to find topics that correlate to your chosen theme.

Create topic overviews. When the topics have been decided a topic overview If there is time, these can be written by the chairpersons, if there isn’t, any of the ones in our database.

Create a schedule for the event. If your session is a one day event, it is recommended that you use the premade resolutions that you can find in our database and spend most of the time in general assembly. If the session will be two days or longer however, we recommend that the participants get to spend one of the days writing their resolutions in their committees. Team building is only recommended for longer sessions.

Send out welcome booklets. These should contain information about EYP, how the session will take place, what is expected of the participants and the schedule that you have created. You will find a template in the database, however not everything in it needs to be in the final product and you can choose which information in the template you want to use.

3. Finalising

This section aims to detail the last things that need to be done before the start of the session and can generally be done 1-2 weeks before the start of the event.

Allocate participants to every committee. Either randomly or by collecting preferences through a Google form. You will find a template for such a form in the database.

Each committee chairperson takes contact with their allocated participants. When doing this the most important part is that they tell them their committee allocation and send them topic overviews. If you decided to use pre-made resolutions, these can also be sent out now.

Plan the opening and closing ceremonies. These events aren’t necessary but are a good way to give structure to the session. They don’t need to be all too long either, but we recommend inviting at least one speaker. This could for example be the headmaster, an EYP teacher, the organiser, someone from the municipality or an EYP Sweden trustee.

Congratulations! You’ve hosted an EYP school session.

Do you have pictures or want to share them with us at EYP Sweden? Contact us on one of our social networks and don’t forget to use #eypsweden