Where do you stand?

 

Before you begin 

• Use the safety checklist to help you plan and risk assess your activity. There's also more guidance to help you carry out your risk assessment, including examples.  
• Make sure all young people and adults involved in the activity know how to take part safely.  
• Make sure you’ll have enough adult helpers. You may need some parents and carers to help. 

Planning and setting up this activity 

• Make sure you have lots of space to move around.  
• Write or print out signs that say ‘Agree’, ‘Disagree’, ‘Strongly agree’ and ‘Strongly disagree’, then place them on each of the four sides or corners of the space. 

Running this activity 

1. Gather everyone together. Explain that you’re going to be able to play a game to learn more about different political ideas and how much you agree with them.
2.  Tell everyone that you’ll read a statement from the list, then people should move to the sign that best represents how much they agree with the statement. Once they’ve decided, At the end, reveal who the statement is supported by and ask if this was a surprise. Once everyone has decided, ask people who are happy to to discuss why they chose the option they did. Let people know they can also move somewhere else during the discussions if they wanted to. Read each of the statements, then people should move to where the feel they agree with: 
   1. Every young person should study maths until 18 (Conservative)  
   2. We should not do more oil and gas drilling in the North Sea. (Labour) 
   3. Buses should be free for young people aged 16 to 24 (Plaid Cymru) 
   4. University should be free to attend (Green Party) 
   5. The House of Lords should be replaced (Reform UK) 
   6. Businesses should be required to recycle. (SNP – Scottish National Party) 
   7. We would pass a law to stop Britain becoming a cashless society. (Liberal Democrats) 
   8. All young people should do a year of national service in the armed forces OR a weekend a month of volunteering when they are 18. (Conservative) 
   9. Young people should be able to vote from 16 (Labour)
   10. We would promote high standards of animal welfare in farming, including making it illegal to keep chickens in cages (Green Party) 
   11. We would hold a referendum on Welsh independence (Plaid Cymru) 
   12. We would hold a referendum on Scottish independence (SNP - Scottish National Party) 
   13. We should leave the European Convention on Human rights (Reform UK) 

3. At the end, gather back together. Ask everyone how they found the activity. What surprised them? Did they expect to make the choices they did? And did it change their view of any of the parties? When you found out about why other people had made their decision, did it change or impact your view too? 

   Remind everyone that these are only a few party policies and only a couple of statements from their manifesto, so it can be hard to get a full view. Explain parties put all their statements and policies in a manifesto, so encourage people to read or find out more about them before deciding.