A mock general election at a junior school has shown the Conservative party may need to play closer attention to the needs of the younger generation.
Geoffrey Field Junior School, in Reading, revealed their election resulted in a “landslide win” for Labour, with 85% of children voting for them.
Interestingly, Reading West is a Conservative constituency as Alok Sharma was today re-elected as their MP, so the kids obviously weren’t swayed by their parents’ decisions.
Two of the school’s Year 6 student councillors, Sophie and Zaara, announced the result during a morning assembly on Friday 9 June.
“In the assembly we then went on to discuss the results of the national election and the results for Reading West,” said Lara Fincken, learning mentor at the school.
“The children were interested to hear about the possible outcomes following the election.
“Our overall message to them was that their voice is important, their voice matters and their voice must be heard. We hope this inspires them to be actively involved in politics and vote when they are older.”
The school invited four local MPs in to speak to the kids in the lead up to the election.
Not all candidates were able to make it, but Meri O’Connell from the Liberal Democrats and Olivia Bailey from the local Labour party came in to speak to the children about their policies.
Children were able to ask the MPs questions and quiz them on the issues they felt were important to them, including SATs and the environment.
In the week leading up to voting day (Thursday 8 June), children had to register at school to vote.
“All week we have been encouraging the children to register to vote,” explained Fincken.
“In total we had 147 children register (98 girls and 49 boys). We really wanted to emphasise the importance of registering so if they did not register they were not allowed to vote.”
On 8 June, the school ran polling stations at break and lunch time, to give everyone an opportunity to vote.
The school told the children they would announce the results on Friday 9 June during a morning assembly.
“It’s been really great,” added Fincken. “The children have absolutely loved it.
“We’ve had a lot of assemblies about it in the week leading up to the election and it’s interesting to see how children perceive politics and begin to understand it.
“We’ve also had conversations about the legal voting age and whether it should be lowered to get them discussing politics.”
One of the children who voted said: “This general election has shown us that our vote will always count and and has prepared us for the future.”
And another one said: “This election has been fun to run and we look forward to see what happens in the next few months.”
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