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Thursday, 11 March 2010


So post your questions as a comment underneath and we'll put them to Ed Balls, Michael Gove and David Laws on Tuesday.

YOUR questions answered

ONE of these men will be making the decisions for the next five years about the things that affect you. We put your questions to them. Check out our video to see what they said...

Go to www.firstnews.co.uk/decision-time to watch the video and find out how YOU can get involved and cast YOUR vote.

Ed Balls is in the job at the moment, as the Labour Government’s Secretary of State for Children, Schools and Families.

But, following the General Election which will take place soon, one of these other two men could take over.

Michael Gove is the Shadow Children’s Secretary for the Conservative Party and David Laws is the Shadow Children’s Secretary for the Liberal Democrat Party.

On Tuesday we are gathering all three men together to face a grilling from 100 First News readers. They will quiz the MPs about the issues in your lives that matter most to you.

We asked you to submit your questions, and you did, so later today we will be putting your questions to Ed Balls, Michael Gove and David Laws then uploading the video here. 

Go to www.firstnews.co.uk/decision-time to watch the video and find out how YOU can get involved and cast YOUR vote.

The Question Time event was kindly sponsored by Espresso, an extensive library of high quality, video rich broadband teaching resources and student activities that motivates pupils and supports teachers. Visit them at www.espresso.co.uk

The Salmon Youth Centre in Bermondsey has been reaching out to young people in inner city London for over 100 years and is one of the largest youth centres in the UK - www.salmoncentre.co.uk





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24 Comments


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  • manny21296 (Age 15) wrote on Thursday, 11 March 2010 @ 19:34

    I would like to ask them: Kids- we are labelled;teenagers and children are stereotyped by adults and other young people. What will you do about this? How will you try and promote children and encourage them to stop creating these sterotypes for themselves by carrying out irresponsible actions?

  • manny21296 (Age 15) wrote on Thursday, 11 March 2010 @ 19:36

    I keep sending first news emails to join the ews crew and emailing them reports I have spent a long time working on, but I get no eply. Can first news not contact hotail email?

  • googybear (Age 14) wrote on Thursday, 11 March 2010 @ 19:38

    Young people are known for hanging around on the streets a lot and get quite a bit of stick for it, would there be more to help young people get off the streets-more for them to do?

  • chichic (Age 16) wrote on Friday, 12 March 2010 @ 18:04

    the are a lots of crimes which makes parents not letting the kids go out after five. that when you get obesity cus of lack of excersice.

  • Emsgrant (Age 11) wrote on Friday, 12 March 2010 @ 20:41

    Well I is bad upsetting people! And children will not want to play were they are hanging out !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Plz Change!

  • homed (Age 13) wrote on Saturday, 13 March 2010 @ 12:31

    what are your opinoins on home education and the badman policy

  • Fizzy (Age 14) wrote on Saturday, 13 March 2010 @ 18:32

    Young people are the first to be blamed for all killings, how would YOU make a difference?

  • NewsWhizz (Age 12) wrote on Saturday, 13 March 2010 @ 19:13

    Will you set up a system that will allow children to make a limited number of phone calls, but unlimited texts?

  • kieran (Age 9) wrote on Sunday, 14 March 2010 @ 06:06

    do more for kids getting bullied

  • MatJ (Age 13) wrote on Sunday, 14 March 2010 @ 14:16

    Hey, I've got a question! Apparently, all kids have to finish school at 17 or 18 years old. Would you change that?

  • ingiecool (Age 8) wrote on Sunday, 14 March 2010 @ 19:41

    I am a big fan of kids watching the news and I think that more kids should watch it but some adults say that children should not watch the news because some things can be rude and violent, is this true that kids should not watch the news?

  • ingiecool (Age 8) wrote on Sunday, 14 March 2010 @ 19:43

    How are you going make sure that kids dont bully each other because this is a big problem in britain?

  • ingiecool (Age 8) wrote on Sunday, 14 March 2010 @ 19:47

    A lot of the kids in britain are obese, I do not like seeing fat kids. How are you going to change this? PLZ PLZ PLZ CHANGE!!!!

  • rEd-DeViLs (Age 13) wrote on Monday, 15 March 2010 @ 07:58

    Why do we have to take tests for school that are good , why can't all schools be good? By the way Im going to the programme with my school.

  • Year8 (Age 13) wrote on Monday, 15 March 2010 @ 14:47

    Our Year 8 class would like to know the answers to the following questions: Aaron – age 13, London: What are you going to do for children who receive a bad education? Brandon – age 12, London: We should have lockers in our school so we don’t have to carry all our stuff around every day. Are you willing to do this? Lewis – age 13, London: What are you going to do about transport on the streets because the buses to go to and from school are always packed and they are never on time? Abdi – age 12, London: Why can’t all children have free school meals? What do you think about this? Ben – age 12, London: Can you stop making cigarettes and do something to stop drugs? Argis – age 13, London: Why can’t we have less days at school in the week so we can have a balance between home schooling and normal schooling and teachers can also have a break? Charlie – age 13, London: What would you do to stop kids drinking? Mahfuud – age 13, London: Would you ban oyster cards? Oyster cards are not suitable for children because children easily lose them. We would be more interested in having cheaper fares for children. Kaim – age 13, London: How would you stop young kids joining gangs? Faith – age 12, London: Why can’t all schools have cooking clubs? Paul – age 13, London: How would you help the kids in Africa to have a better life?

  • bobanana (Age 13) wrote on Monday, 15 March 2010 @ 19:03

    Tests can really worry people. Could you either ban or try to make them less stressful by not making such a big deal about them? I'm lucky because I don't get stressed by tests but for people who do, its just unfair. You can't grade someone on whether they find it hard to work when doing something that they have a lot of pressure put on them to do well in.

  • scutler (Age 12) wrote on Monday, 15 March 2010 @ 21:33

    why should some schools get picked for doing science sats and others not its just not fair on the schools that do

  • rEd-DeViLs (Age 13) wrote on Wednesday, 17 March 2010 @ 07:16

    Why haven't you put the video yet?

  • Clare wrote on Thursday, 18 March 2010 @ 12:33

    Hi manny21296 I'm sorry you haven't heard anything back from us yet. Please can you send your reports again to and if this hasn't worked in the past, try my email: We should be able to receive hotmail emails, but maybe you should put "News Crew report" in the subject box. I hope this works. Clare at First News

  • Hana (Age 14) wrote on Sunday, 28 March 2010 @ 15:24

    Everybody says that they are going to change things for the better. However few people have lived up to their promises. What we want to know is are you going to do what you actually say you're going to do?

  • saffrone (Age 9) wrote on Friday, 9 April 2010 @ 10:40

    Go ED BALLS

  • Lelcookie (Age 12) wrote on Thursday, 15 April 2010 @ 18:19

    Try and get your parents to vote for the green party because they are eco friendly!

  • manny21296 (Age 15) wrote on Monday, 19 April 2010 @ 18:45

    Thank you Clare. I will try and email the news desk again.

  • chaleyfu10 (Age 11) wrote on Monday, 6 September 2010 @ 13:09

    In the FirstNews newspaper someone wrote about the pokemon champs, how can my sister enter? She has a brilliant mind of pokemon.