On Thursday 4 July, the nation will head to the polling stations to vote for the next Prime Minister of Great Britain and Northern Island. And here at Shiplake, on Friday 21 June, our pupils and staff also got involved by participating in our very own mock election!
Politics A-level pupils put themselves forward to represent five of the main political parties, including the Conservatives, the Liberal Democrats, Labour, the Green Party, and Reform UK. The pupils were grouped and then allocated a political party before working hard to get their respective party manifestos across to the voters before they descended on the voting booths.
On the morning of Mock Election day, pupils heard from all the candidates in a special hustings themed assembly. There, each party had a short amount of time to highlight where their party stood on key issues such as the NHS, the economy, and the environment.
Then at lunchtime, it was over to the Shiplake community. With pupils and staff being signposted to the voting booths, it was fantastic to see so many getting involved particularly in the younger year groups where there was a 64% and 86% turnout from Year 7 and Year 8 pupils respectively. Overall, there were 312 votes cast (76 staff and 236 pupils). After discounting the majority of the Year 11 and 13 pupils – who were absent following the completion of their public examinations - and any other pupils absent and on trips, this equates to an impressive 72% turnout of pupils, which is above the 67.3% turnout at the last general election in 2019.
Thank you to Miss Lane for overseeing the Mock Election and well done to the following pupils for excellently representing their political parties:
- Conservatives: Wilf Jennings, Kai Critchley, and S Syed
- Labour: Alfie Malcolm, Ollie Palmer-Page, and Max Fairhurst
- Green Party: Theo Sanders, Marcus Frost, and Luke Fisher
- Liberal Democrats: Charlie Mclaughlin, Ava Pearson, and Ed Galer
- Reform UK: J Scanlon, Jake Rodgers, and Will Crofts
Keeping with the theme of politics, on Monday 24 June, Mr Player took some of our A-level politics pupils to attend the local hustings between candidates for parliament for the Henley & Thame constituency at Christ Church in Henley ahead next month's election.
Mr Player said:
‘It was a fantastic opportunity for our students to see politics in action as candidates from the major parties battled it out in a spirited and lively debate that covered lots of important topics. It was a fascinating discussion and great to see a democratic contest!'
