It’s not only the major political parties who have been battling it out, in the lead up to today! Over the past week or so, 19 pupils from Year 5 have been campaigning and canvassing hard, to gain enough votes from their constituents (class mates) to win them a seat on our School Council. This afternoon, each of the 19 pupils, all from Year 5, presented their manifestos and policies to the rest of the school, in a last minute bid to win over some final votes. Each of the candidates had created a series of electronic PowerPoint or Prezi slides, outlining their major policies and promises.  They all introduced themselves and were given five minutes to explain what they could do for their fellow pupils at St. Julian’s Primary School.

Lots of the candidates promised that if they were elected, they would lobby Mr Rees to install a new bike shed and also to buy a gigantic trampoline.  It was also suggested that a range of new After School Clubs should be started, including: a Chess club, Basketball club and an Art club. Some of the candidates were even completely honest and also said what they could not do for the school! (Perhaps we should get them to teach the real politicians to do this, too!) Things they couldn’t promise were: a roller coaster on the school field and no school on a Friday!! (Shame – they would have had my vote!) Lots of the candidates included a quiz in their presentations, which involved all the children in the hall.
The children were initially very nervous on the stage, but once Mrs Orford had introduced the first candidate, the rest of the candidates felt more at ease.  The pupils watching the presentations gave each candidate a huge round of applause after they had finished and the candidates on the stage showed huge team spirit and respect for each other, congratulating one another after they had completed their speeches.  All of the teachers were very proud of the pupils who put themselves up for election and were impressed with the quality of the excellent, well-written speeches.

After the 19 candidates had presented, Mrs Orford handed out the ballot papers, with photographs of all the candidates. The pupils then made their way back to their classrooms to cast their votes.  Mrs McKenzie collected in all of the votes at the end of the day.

It’s going to be a busy night for her counting up all the votes, but she will reveal the results in tomorrow’s Star Pupil Assembly.  Good luck to all of the candidates! I wonder if we’ll end up with a coalition!