Introduction to the EPAS:

The European Parliament Ambassador School Programme (EPAS) aims to promote the European parliamentary democracy, the role of the European Parliament and European values amongst secondary and vocational schools. It allows students to learn about their rights as EU citizens and how they can engage with the democratic process of the EU.

Overview:

Over the past month, we have had 4 sessions, in which we aimed to complete the programme successfully. We had four areas to cover: to set up an info-point; to hold a cultural activity; to hold a debate; to produce evidence of our work.

We worked together in meetings to organise our tasks. We had a meeting with one organiser- where we could talk to the organiser and ask him for advice.

Introduction to each section.

Debate

We conducted entirely the debate in French. We had decided that the topic would be ‘Should all the countries in the EU have a minimum wage?’ We organised the event so that students worked in teams and each team represented a country.

We concluded that every country has its own requirement, which should be dealt with in the country’s best interest.

Cultural Activity

For the Cultural Activity, we had two events planned. The first event was a ‘what is the EU? What’s the European Parliament?’ quiz- which year 7 took part in.

The second event was a Year 7 cooking event; where they cooked a popular dish from a European Country and presented it during their Spanish lesson.

Info Point

We had a display board, which we change regularly to keep others interested and engaged. On the board, we had a summary of what the values of the EU were as well as the EU’s goals.

We also had a mini quiz and facts about the EU. We also included QR quote codes for some of the most popular songs in the EU and a QR code for the recipe of the week.