YES Planning Project

Since 2013, the School’s students have been engaging with the region’s young people through the ‘YES Planning’ volunteer project.  During the project’s first years, students developed, tested and refined a range of activities that introduced young people to the concept of planning.  These activities are contained within the Planning the Future Toolkit.

A series of workshops in 2015, which was funded through The Catherine Cookson Foundation, resulted in the production of the “Tyneside 2030: A young people’s plan” publication.   This report highlighted our young people’s hopes for a greener and more sustainable future. Tyneside 2030 Report

More recently, the “Canny Planners” project was developed and delivered to over 2000 young people on Tyneside, from 2018 onwards.  This workshop aims to raise young people’s awareness of the value of planning for healthier high streets, with a focus on the environmental and lifestyle impact that an increasingly larger number of hot food takeaways can generate.  The workshop comprises the Healthy High Street board game that was designed by the student volunteers, as well as a planning committee play that was written and acted by the volunteers themselves.  The student team also delivered an online version of these workshops to schools in May 2021. Resources for these workshops are available here:

• Canny Planners Write Up - Rebecca Evans
• Canny Planners Inset Cards
• Healthy High Street Game
• Canny Planners 2021 Master PowerPoint
• Planning Committee Play
• Planning for Climate Change and Sustainable Neighbourhoods
• Young People Planning for Climate Change and Sustainable Neighbourhoods

During the current academic year, YES Planning volunteers have been designing resources to encourage young people to think about how to plan more sustainable neighbourhoods which are resilient to climate change. (resources to follow)

The YES Planning project has recruited nearly 100 student volunteers from across the School since its inception and has worked with nearly 3000 young people across Tyneside.  Students have enjoyed the participatory experience whilst learning new engagement skills and mixing with peers in other cohorts and degree programmes.

“The YES planning workshops were a great, interactive way to teach young people about the importance of planning. I found it really interesting to hear the opinions and ideas that young people have on different planning topics, which made me think about things which I would not have otherwise considered!” (YES Planning volunteer, 2021).