How we delivered
Types of dialogue session
Digital Dialogue: Wales supports teachers to deliver engaging workshops and connects learners and politicians through facilitated conversations that lead to tangible changes in communities.
Through Digital Dialogue: Wales we have delivered three types of Dialogue or intervention:
'Standard' Dialogue session
Learners ask prepared questions to a politician who represents them. These are facilitated by The Politics Project online, or by a teacher in person. This is the most common type of activity we delivered.
Leader Dialogues
Dialogue sessions where learners from several schools across Wales ask prepared questions to, and discuss issues with, a Senedd political party leader.
Youth hustings
For young people aged 14-25 in Wales, the hustings were an opportunity to meet with, and ask questions of, their parliamentary candidates in the run up to the General Election.
Facilitation
The Politics Project tailors Dialogue sessions to the particular needs of the learners, teachers and politicians taking part. The majority of sessions were delivered online and facilitated by us. We also arrange in-person sessions facilitated by teachers where this was their preference, with guidance from us.
Dialogue sessions by type
Dialogue sessions by facilitator (%)
Digital format
The digital nature of the programme means that politicians can engage more easily and frequently with the young people they serve. This is especially notable for MSs and MPs who are often only in the constituency on Fridays, significantly reducing the available time they have to visit and interact with young constituents in person.
Welsh language
Digital Dialogues also make simultaneous translation much simpler, allowing sessions to be delivered in Welsh, English or in both languages. Learners were able to ask questions in their preferred language even if the politician they were speaking to was not able to speak that language. 27% of all sessions were conducted in Welsh, either partially or fully.
For the Youth Hustings, simultaneous translation was also available for the in person events.
Language medium of DDW sessions compared to language medium of all schools across Wales (%)
Delivering 'Standard' dialogue sessions
‘Standard’ Dialogue sessions make up the majority of the Dialogues we delivered. This type of Dialogue session take four teaching hours to prepare for and deliver - three hours of workshops followed by a one hour Dialogue session.
We train teachers to prepare learners to engage digitally with their elected representatives. Teachers design a scheme of work for learners from our specialised resources and are trained to be expert facilitators for their Digital Dialogue sessions with local, national or UK representatives.
After being trained, teachers use our resources to deliver three hours of workshops to their learners. The resources support young people to explore social and political issues, research the politicians they will engage with and prepare questions for their Dialogue sessions. Resources are available in Welsh or English.
Teachers support a Digital Dialogue session, connecting their learners with politicians via Teams, Zoom or a similar platform. We arrange and facilitate the session, provide practical and technical support and lead on communications to promote the event. Simultaneous translation is available to support non-Welsh speakers. We can also arrange in-person Dialogue sessions if the teachers prefer.
We will then liaise with the politician and school to support the politician in fulfilling the pledge. Once they have fulfilled the pledge, we help them communicate the outcome with the learners that were involved. 36 Dialogue sessions have had a pledge from a politician. At the time of writing, 13 pledges have been completed, 15 are in progress and 8 have not been completed.
Click the button to find a list of the completed pledges.
Find a list of the completed pledges here.
Teacher recruitment, training and support
Teacher recruitment
In this phase of the programme we wanted to engage with 80 teachers to deliver Digital Dialogue: Wales. We overachieved this target, supporting 89 teachers in total. Across the programme we received 118 expressions of interest (EOIs) from teachers for Digital Dialogue: Wales, plus a further 28 EOIs for the Leader Dialogue sessions and 34 for youth hustings.
A successful method of promoting the programme was through word of mouth, with teachers who had good experiences of Digital Dialogue: Wales recommending colleagues to get involved. 24 teachers came to the programme through this route - more than via any other single route.
We also continued to find “joint approaches” a successful recruitment tool, where Members of the Senedd wrote to their local schools to see if they would be interested in taking part in Digital Dialogue: Wales. In total. 22 MSs agreed to contact schools, which led to 13 teachers taking part. We focused this approach mainly on constituencies where we were getting less engagement from schools.
Number of teachers we worked with by school type
We also contacted teachers who had previously delivered the programme or had expressed an interest in the programme. 16 teachers returned to the programme after taking part in the 2021 and 2022 versions of Digital Dialogue: Wales.
We collaborated with Cardiff Council’s Democracy Ambassadors programme, offering bespoke training for teachers on the programme who wanted to deliver Digital Dialogue: Wales sessions to help with their efforts in embedding democratic education in their schools. Through this collaboration we recruited 9 teachers.
We promoted the programme through our social media channels and various teacher network newsletters, including Democracy Classroom and Dysg, with 15 teachers coming to the programme through these channels. Local School Consortia also recommended the programme to their schools, with 3 teachers expressing an interest in the programme, 2 of which eventually took part.
Teacher training
To enable teachers to deliver Digital Dialogue: Wales we ran 18 online teacher training sessions.
Our teacher training was well received, with 100% of participants reporting that they felt more confident and equipped to deliver Digital Dialogue: Wales after the training. Furthermore, 100% of teachers say they would recommend the training to a colleague.
Teacher support
Our training sessions were followed up with a 1-1 call with teachers to discuss how they wanted to deliver the programme and what would work best for their learners.
We organised Dialogue sessions on behalf of teachers, enabling learners to engage directly with their elected representative(s). We provided teachers with easy to follow task lists, and sent reminders for key elements of the programme to be completed.
Teachers - I felt supported by The Politics Project (%)
We also made sure teachers understood that they could contact us whenever they had questions or needed help with an element of the programme. This was valued by teachers.
100% of teachers felt supported by The Politics Project during the programme and 100% would recommend Digital Dialogue: Wales to a colleague.
We support teachers in advance of the Dialogue session to ensure that their learners have a level of knowledge and understanding of the politician they are going to speak to, their role and current policy issues, to make the conversation they have meaningful.
Teachers: I would recommend Digital Dialogue: Wales to a colleague (%)
Politician recruitment and support
Politician recruitment
Politicians were approached once a school in their ward, constituency or region had confirmed they wished to have a Dialogue session with them.
Being clear what the purpose of the event was, how the learners are prepared and what they will get from the session, led to a 100% success rate in recruiting politicians.
Number of Politicians who took part in programme by role
Party Representation
The number of politicians from different parties who took part in Digital Dialogue: Wales is broadly in line with party representation nationally. It was important to ensure a range of political parties were represented.
As a percentage of the total, we did work with fewer independent candidates than there are nationally. This reflects the greater number of Members of the Senedd we worked with, where there are no independents compared to councillors, where there are over 300 independents.
% of politicians in Wales by party compared to % of politicians who have taken part in Digital Dialogue: Wales by party
Click here for a full list of politicians worked with.
Politician support
We provide a range of support to politicians and their teams taking part in the programme, including: a comprehensive briefing document, an agenda, participant information and guidance on maximising session value. This ensures politicians have all the information they need to feel prepared and ready to meaningfully engage with young people.
100% of politicians who took part in Digital Dialogue: Wales would recommend taking part to other politicians.
Learning resources
Through Digital Dialogue: Wales, teachers have access to over 60 hours of learning resources from The Politics Project. There are 15 individual lessons and activities, available in Welsh and English, specifically designed to meet the requirements of the Curriculum for Wales.
Building on the interest from primary schools in the 2022 programme, in 2023 we developed a suite of resources specifically for primary and ALN learners, introducing them to local government, the Senedd and the UK Parliament.
Feedback on the resources was very positive. 97% of teachers found the resources useful in order to deliver democratic education and 96% of teachers found the resources to be of high quality.
In particular the children enjoyed [The Lego Game], imagining if they were deciding on what are the most important priorities for a Government and what they would consider putting money into.
The children really enjoyed having that debate, and it was really interesting to see their views, and why they would choose to put money into education, or welfare, etc.”
