As part of today’s General Election, TPS has been running a parallel election called TPS Votes and students came out of lessons today to vote, using ballot papers in a booths in the Studio. The results will be counted and the outcome shared with the school community tomorrow.
The school has held special assemblies explaining how our parliamentary democracy and general elections work, and we invited the candidates standing in East Hampshire from the five national parties (this is the constituency where TPS is located but we invited the national party candidates because our children come from 7 different constituencies in total) to a series of TPS Question Time events where students could come along and ask them questions about their policies.
Our student journalists have been investigating the policies of the five national parties and put together videos focusing on the policies that will impact younger people the most (Education, Environment & Climate, Cost of Living and Healthcare). After the Question Time events, the student journalists interviewed the candidates, and the videos were shared with all students in the school during tutor times.
Headteacher Mark Marande said, “We are very passionate about engaging our students with the general election and politics more widely. We want them to get ‘into the habit’ of voting, grappling local, national and global issues and exercising their democratic rights. I have been hugely impressed with how much enthusiasm the students have shown for grilling our local candidates and learning about the manifestos of the different parties. We have shared with them the importance of being active participants in their society and I am very encouraged for the future led by them and their generation.”
