Year 6 enjoy a visit to the Houses of Parliament

Year 6 and staff all enjoyed their visit to the Houses of Parliament on Wednesday. The trip involved a tour of parliament followed by a workshop on how MPs are voted into power. The children were lucky enough to visit both the House of Commons and the House of Lords and the staff were very impressed with the knowledge of politics that the children displayed and some of the thoughtful questions that they asked their guides. The children were fascinated to see that every word spoken in each house is written down and published in books that are on display and that all of the MPs have a pigeon hole for their post even though they communicate solely through e-mail - they spotted Jeremy Corbyn and Cheryl Gillan's but Boris Johnson had removed his already, as is tradition before an election. They were also impressed to find that anyone is welcome to visit Parliament and if you request to see your MP they are obliged to come and see you if they're not already in a meeting. One of the facts that is likely to change after the upcoming election is that there are more MPs called John than there are female MPs...

After the tour, the children took part in a workshop which demonstrated how MPs are elected and how they develop their policies to get people to vote for them. The children took part in hustings, discussed the topical news of the day and all had the opportunity to cast their votes in ballot boxes. MPs were duly elected from the group, although I'm not sure that in the General Election they will decide tight constituency results through rock, paper, scissors!

This valuable trip has helped to explain the role of parliament and democracy and hopefully inspired some to consider a career in politics. It would suit some of our Year 6 pupils very well!