News The Godolphin and Latymer Mock General Election 04.07.2024

In parallel with the General Election, the school has been running its own Mock Election. Lower Sixth students took on the challenge of representing the main parties contesting the real election, including some who bravely campaigned for parties that whose views they do not share. Over 40 Year 10 students volunteered to play a role in the election, ranging from campaigning to administering the vote.

Early in the campaign, the focus was mainly on slogans but as it developed each of the parties promoted the policies that they would enact if in government. There were hustings, for the parties to explain their policies in person, a ‘leaders debate’ in which the Lower Sixth students presented their arguments to the whole school body, an opinion poll (which indicated a dominant Liberal Democrat performance) and, of course, the vote itself.

The mock election, as with the real election, was conducted on a constituency basis with each year-group making up a constituency. There were seven constituencies in total including a staff constituency and proxy votes from Year 11 and Upper Sixth students counting as a single constituency. As happens in UK elections, the party with the most votes overall did not win the most seats. The overall result saw the Liberal Democrats win the most votes, but it was the Greens who won the most seats.

The whole exercise was conducted with real drive and determination and the focus on policy hopefully served as civic education for the younger students.  With the Art department producing the ballot boxes, reprographics producing the ballot papers, ICT compiling the opinion poll and results data and premises staff setting up the spaces where election activities were held, it was truly a school-wide effort. Congratulations to all the candidates who worked so hard during the campaign, alongside all of their other commitments.