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The second of our debates on Sunday tackled education, covering the likes of discipline, standards and the future funding of schools.

If you missed it, you can catch what the voters had to say to our panel of politicians on the ³ÉÈËÂÛ̳ iPlayer.

But I was mightily impressed by our audience, which included parents and teachers.

Anna Wass, who was recently awarded the prize as the region's Oustanding New Teacher, was particularly keen to challenge the politicians.

But they all had interesting points to make, including questioning the value of SATs tests and asking about the high proportion of NEETs in the North East (that's young people who leave the education system only to end up without a job, or training place).

You may have noticed that I also had an opportunity to get my bag out again, something which always cheers me up.

My thanks to Hardwick Primary in Stockton for being our hosts. I did have one anxious moment though when my satnav took me to an empty field surrounded by houses.

It turned out that was the old site of the school. It was demolished and rebuilt nearby, so I soon tracked it down.

Our debates move to Cumbria next week, where we'll be looking at rural issues.

It's good though to see the national ³ÉÈËÂÛ̳ network paying the patch some attention too though.

Last week, I made it onto ³ÉÈËÂÛ̳ Breakfast's Outside Broadcast in Middlesbrough to talk about the election, and onto the ³ÉÈËÂÛ̳ News Channel with some students at the NUS Conference in Gateshead.

And is being co-presented from Newcastle until Wednesday.

So I got a chance speak to presenter James Naughtie on the programme in the Newcastle radio studios on Monday morning to outline what the current polls might mean in the region.

Next week the ³ÉÈËÂÛ̳ Election bus will also arrive in Sunderland to assess the contest there.

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