The English Secondary Students' Association or ESSA is the independent representative body for secondary students in England. ESSA is run by students, for students aged 11 to 19 years old and supports young people in having a voice on issues which affect their lives at school or college.
ESSA works to become the representative organisation for students in key stages 3–5 (year groups 7 to 13) throughout England. ESSA provides support, training and advice to help students to get involved in decision making. It also works closely with students in other European countries through a student-led organisation called OBESSU (Organising Bureau of European School Student Unions).
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The organisation was founded in 2003 by a 17 year old school student, Rajeeb Dey following a Level 1 Award from UnLtd- the Foundation for Social Entrepreneurs and support from the Phoenix Education Trust. It was officially launched at the Trades Union Congress in February 2005 where over 200 students gathered to discuss the future direction of the organisation and NUS President Kat Fletcher was the keynote speaker.
ESSA is a student-led organisation run by students, for students. This means that the ESSA Council makes the decisions about how ESSA is run.
ESSA's Council is made up of 18 students who are elected by members of ESSA. There are two elected Council members from each of the 9 regions in England. The Council aims to ensure that the actions taken by ESSA are representative of the views of ESSA's student members. The current council is this:
| Region | North West | North East | East Midlands | West Midlands | Yorkshire and the Humber | East | South West | South East | London | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Seat 1 | Seat 2 | Vacant |
It should also be noted that the Council's current Chairperson is Andrew Elliott (North East) while Salil Bhate (East) fills the role of Vice Chair.
Campaign 4 Change in October 2007 ESSA launch Campaign for Change, a project which was funded by V and aimed to get as many young people campaigning about issues that they cared about as possible. ESSA achieved this in a number of ways, most notably through the creation of their workshop 'Campaign 4 Change', run entirely by young people, the C4C training was eventually taken by more than 2000 young people and is still being used today.
Manifesto 4 Change on the 5th May 2009, ESSA launched their video competition 'Manifesto 4 Change' at Portcullis House, Westminster, with the support of many organisations and individuals including Natashca Engels MP, Channel 4 and NESTA. With a view to eventually creating a written manifesto for the next general election, ESSA have invited young people to send in up to 3 minutes of video on what they think should be changed in the education system.
There are 5 categories;
After the deadline for entries of 18 June 2009, the videos will be judged and the winning entries will be shown on Channel 4 later this year. As well as prizes for the winners, all of the views from the videos will be used to create a Students' Manifesto to show politicians what students want!