Mock Election

The Westbourne House electorate was able to place votes in the school mock election on the day of the national general election.

The school had a focus on democracy, how parliament works and the manifestos of major parties as part of the Learning4Life curriculum.  Therefore it was exciting to see all of this in a real context and pupils from Year 2 to 8 engaged extremely well in the hustings and mock election. At the hustings, there were three representatives of major parties played by staff members who fielded questions from the whole school. Mr Anderson, Conservative, Mr Sutcliffe, Labour and Mrs Sutcliffe, Liberal Democrats.

In Year 8 Religion, Philosophy and Ethics lessons we simplified the manifestos so that all could access the promises of the parties. With campaign posters around the school and leaflets to read in the library, the pupils were armed with opinions based on their own family discussions and the perspective of all of the parties.

On the day we all cast our votes in the “Polling Station” in the meeting room with booths, ballot boxes and voting slips as in the real election. The station was open from 8.30am to 3.45pm and manned throughout. Some pupils were brought to vote by their teachers and the vast majority had to make the effort to come along themselves. 277 children voted from Year 2 to Year 8. The counting was done by pupils in Year 6 immediately after the 3.45pm deadline and the results posted ay 4.20pm so that all could follow the National Election coverage with an informed view of how things might pan out. Never has the chatting at the pillars had so much depth and significance.

Well done to all the staff and children who really immersed themselves in the murky world of politics. As we now know, the national results were more straightforward than ours.