Parliament week in Linmere

Date: 18th Nov 2018 @ 7:45pm

This week, along with the rest of the school, Linmere have been taking part in different activities for Parliament week.

At the beginning of the week we looked at how Parliament is made up in the UK. The children found out that Parliament is made up of 3 parts: The Queen, The House of Commons and The House of Lords. We located the different countries of the UK on a map and found out about their assemblies and parliaments.

 On Tuesday we held a debate similar to those held in the House of Commons. As last week we were remembering the soldiers who had died in conflict we decided to hold a debate on whether it is ever right to go to war. The children split into two teams and came up with their own arguments for and against war. As speaker it was Sam’s job to keep order and he did so incredibly well. The children knew that if they had something to say they had to stand up and wait to be invited to speak by the speaker. Both sides put forward the arguments very well.

Later in the week we found out about The Suffragettes and their plight to secure votes for women.. As part of this work we studied some of the posters used and created by the Suffragettes and then had a go at creating our own posters.

The week came to end when we set up our own polling station. The children decided to vote on the question: Should children at Over St John’s be allowed to bring electronics to school to play with at playtimes? In order to cast their vote the children visited the “polling station”, cast their vote in the secret booth and placed it in the ballot box. The votes were then counted and verified, the result was overwhelmingly in favour by 18 votes to 5 with 3 ballot papers being declared as spoilt. The children will now take this idea to the school council for them to debate, we look forward to hearing the final outcome!