Dartmouth Pupils Make it Count with Research in to Calorie Labelling
Pupils from Dartmouth Academy, part of Education South West, have taken part in a meeting of the Young Person’s Advisory Group (YPAG) this term.
The Dartmouth Young Person’s Advisory Group (YPAG) was set up as a collaboration between the students from Dartmouth Academy and University of Exeter Medical School in early 2022.
The pupils act as invaluable advisors to researchers on projects that involve young people. As a group they have counselled on research projects from a wide variety of topics such as: mental health, healthy relationships, gender-based violence, healthy lifestyles, school food, social inclusion and the ethics of involving young people in research.
The group meets after school every six to eight weeks; the pupils get acknowledged for their time and expertise with a voucher. The pupils have also made annual trips to the Medical School on St Luke’s Campus Exeter where they have toured the Sports Science and Medical Imaging departments.
This year YPAG have been costed into a research project that is looking at the government’s calorie labelling policy, they are advising on how the project is run and the interpretation of the results.
The school is currently planning a trip for early next year to the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, who are partners of the Medical School in this research, where the YPAG pupils will get a tour of the campus, meet the London team and report on their involvement in the project.
Paul Girardot, Principal at Dartmouth Academy said:
“Being part of YPAG is such a brilliant thing for our students to do. They get to contribute in a meaningful way to very important research and while doing this they learn more about how research is conducted and policies are formulated. I want to say a big thank you to Assistant Principal, Nicola Perrott at Camilla Forbes from Exeter Medical School who facilitate all the pupil interactions, it’s clear how much the children gain from being part of these projects.”
Matthew Shanks, CEO of Education South West said:
“At Education South West we really encourage our schools to work collaboratively with other educational institutions across the country for the benefit of all involved. This link up between Dartmouth Academy and Exeter Medical School is exactly the sort of mutually beneficial relationship that we want to see.”
Nicola Perrott, Assistant Principal at Dartmouth Academy said:
"The benefits of working in partnership with Exeter University include greater opportunities for our pupils to acquire knowledge, to develop new skills, to build new friendships and wider support networks, to be heard and to have their concerns taken seriously. Our YPAG pupils unanimously agree that this is raising their aspirations and that they are seriously considering university as part of their future pathway."
