Soon after the General Election was called, Streatham and Clapham High School students and staff participated in their very own mock election, organised by the Politics Department. Two of our A-Level Politics students have written about their experience of the event:

 

 

Lucas, Year 12, Deputy Head of School: Academic

We decided that our mock election should be ‘blind’, whereby the parties were renamed generically as ‘Parties A-E’, with each letter corresponding to the five biggest parties in the UK currently: Labour, Conservatives, Green, Lib Dem, and Reform UK.

This was so that there would be no unconscious bias or “default” voting. We were aware that during our campaigning and mock election week, Years 11 and 13 were away on study leave; two key year groups who were amongst the most likely to be more informed about politics. Therefore we had to find a way for students, especially younger students, to vote in a way that was in line with their own personal beliefs, as opposed to those of their parents, friends or social media.

Hence, we campaigned, hidden behind our fake names, with the Green party representing Party A; Lib Dem, B; Conservatives, C; Labour, D; and Reform UK, E. Posters around school and speeches in assembly effectively laid out the policies of each party so that students could form their opinions before polling day on the Friday at the end of the week. Our A-Level Politics class, as well as a couple of other Year 12 students, helped to organise the event, including making speeches, designing posters, creating ballot boxes, volunteering at the ‘polling station’ and more. We tried to make it as realistic as possible, creating ballot papers and secret voting stations, going as far as to attach the pens to the table with string – to avoid pen theft!

The turnout for our election was around 55%, of all those who were present that week (not too dissimilar to the turnout for the general election which was around 59%). Overall, the Liberal Democrats won in our mock election. We had predicted that either Liberal Democrats or Labour would win, but it came as a surprise that the Green party came in 2nd place, and by quite a close margin. The full results are given below:

 

 

 

 

 

I genuinely learnt so much from organising the election and it was such a fun experience. As a Politics student, we learnt that there is a ‘democratic deficit’ in the UK currently, with young people, in particular, having the lowest voter turnout at general elections. We had to debate whether we wanted the election to be convenient and electronic or for it to be realistic. We chose realism, so as to prepare students for the future and be more familiar with the process. I wanted students to engage with politics by giving them the knowledge directly, so that they wouldn’t have to do the research and could get a platform to express their views. As a result, they were more confident when voting because they had knowledge of party policies. I think this would also be true in the real general elections.

Helena, Year 12, Deputy Head of School: Wellbeing  

I found the whole experience very interesting, as a participant but also as someone watching the pupils’ reactions. The fact that the parties were not named pushed the pupils to vote for who they genuinely thought would be the best party and had the best policies, instead of having already occurring opinions clouding their judgement. It allowed the younger pupils to get a small taste of politics, to pip their interest and maybe encourage them to take it for A-Level or at least gain some political insight. It also allowed us as Politics students to gain a wider insight into the political ideas of different parties, helping develop our knowledge.