Democracy and Government Morning

News - Apr 4

Last week, we had our first Democracy and Government morning, in which students gained a greater understanding of our national government, as part of their Citizenship education. We have taken this new approach of using a whole morning to give the opportunity for students to get more immersed into the functioning of the UK Parliament by setting up their own ‘Form Parliament’ and conducting a debate – the issue under consideration was Badger culling.  

Students were randomly assigned to one of the three main parties and then had to assume the role of one of the MPs in that party, understanding their constituency and how it should be represented in the debate, while also considering their party’s position.  The parties took the positions that Labour, the Conservatives and the Liberal Democrats currently hold, which was challenging for many students!  Some aspects were simplified, such as only including these three parties, and using a more even distribution of MPs, to ensure a meaningful debate could be conducted in the time available. 

All students rose very impressively to the task, choosing their Minister for Food Security and Rural Affairs who would give their main speech, and conducting research to support them, and for their own points, or questions.  They quickly encountered the challenges of supporting a position you may not personally agree with and keeping a united front despite a range of views amongst a large party of MPs!  It was great to see the Labour party in one form identify the need for breaking down into smaller groups and assigned each a focus – such as economic arguments, social, and environmental. To provide a greater understanding of our Parliament, and give some more detailed and expert guidance on parliamentary debates, Tom Williams from UK Parliament outreach gave a talk to students, explaining how and why MPs address each other, and act in the debate as they do – it was great to see this put in action by our students. 

The morning culminated with the ‘MPs’ entering into the debate with gusto, adhering to the rules and expectations… perhaps better than can be seen in the real Parliament! All were a credit in how well they took to the task, of understanding the issues under discussion, and how to carry out the debate, and teachers commented on how well they conducted themselves.