Welcome!

Welcome to enter the world of YES-event!

PROGRAMME OF THE WEEK

Programme of the week:

Monday

The event starts off with a formal opening, where all the participating countries are welcomed. Usually, the mayor of the town and the principal of the school take part and the ceremony requires formal attire. After the official part, the students get to know each other better by playing games.

In the afternoon, the students show their first presentation (10-15 min) in which their country, town, and school are inroduced. This presentation can be a little informal. The format is up to each group, but there has to be a certain level of content. At the end of the day, the students sit down together with their teachers and discuss the different presentations.  

In the evening, students are free to do what they want to do! This includes the participants going to their host-families in order to to get to know them better. The teachers have dinner.

Tuesday

Each school has to make a presentation about the theme of the conference together with a handout. These presentations are approximately 20 minutes long and after the presentations, there is a discussion in the national groups.

In the afternoon, the national groups are divided into international groups. Questions are supplied for debating and discussions in international groups containing one representative from each country.

Finally, the international groups present their results (often in a creative manner).

The programme in the evening is organised by the hosting school.

Wednesday

The organising school creates a nice/social/cultural day regarding the theme of the conference.

Thursday

International groups will debate theses about the central theme.

In the afternoon, each group is expected to deliver a summary including background, proposals, and overall conclusions.

In the evening, there is an international buffet and a farewell party.

Friday

The day starts with a plenary meeting, in which the conclusions of the day before are presented.

The DVD of the week is shown and the certificates are handed out.

The Conference will be officially closed after lunch.

Participants

8 students from each country are invited. The students need to be able to take part in activities and discussions in English.

A student can participate in the conference only once.

At the moment, we don’t invite schools where the native language is English, because their level would be high (too high) for other students.

Most of the students stay with host-families. A youth hostel may be a possibility if we can’t find enough host-families.

From each school, two teachers are invited (they need to be able to speak English, too). The teachers stay in a hotel.

Harry Mulder on the background of the event

The YES-event or Young European School conference was held for the first time from 21^st to 25^th November 2005 in Northgo College, Noordwijk, the Netherlands. Its basic idea was to get students from several schools from different European countries together to discuss and debate about a relevant theme in the past, the present, and the future.

We wanted to get youngsters from different European countries together and make them get to know each other and thereby, learn to appreciate different cultures.

Another aspect, which was inseparably linked to this, was that it would be the most efficient way to fight certain prejudices and to broaden the horizon of not only those students who participated, but also those students that surrounded the participants in their home-country by trying to involve them in the conference by as many means as possible.