Longwood youngsters shine at democracy

The last of the County’s Local Democracy events was for Longwood Primary School from Mile Oak and it took plave this week in Lichfield’s council chamber.

I’ve been lucky enough to host over 30 of them during the last couple of years and the latest set of a dozen or so I’ve run have been amongst the best yet. It’s about helping the kids understand how we make decisions in this country, county and locally.

And it’s done by replicating a council chamber with the children making up 3 different teams who are each tasked with deciding how much of a £100,000 pot goes to five different services… Safety, Health, Transport, Prosperous Communities and Education.

Each team presents their ’budget’ to the others and a debate on each one ensues. Now, I can’t do it justice here. I’ve rewritten this post and still can’t make it sound as lively here as it is in reality. After all three budgets are debated there is a show of hands (as individuals not teams), the ‘poll’ noted and they all go away to tweak their budget having listened to what other teams have said.

The debate from the 9 and 10 year olds at Longwood was amongst the best I seen. Some very direct criticism of other team’s ‘efforts’ and very real confidence in their own team’s proposals. It was great and very inspirational to see how they were genuinely starting to understand how democracy works in our country and how it is better to settle disagreement with debate and discussion rather than anything else.

The two hours I spent with them was a privilege and the enthusiasm of Longwood School teaching staff really added to the morning.  Parents of those attending should be very proud indeed… the kids were very impressive and I could see some potential leaders emerging very clearly.

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