This week we are holding school elections to find out who the new MPs will be.  MP stands for Member of Parliament. This means that some of your classmates decided that they would like the chance to represent your ideas about how we can make the school a healthier environment and play our part in making the earth a greener place. They went away and thought about the ideas that they would like to see happen in school. They gave speeches to you in class to persuade you that they were the best person for the job.  When you listened to what your classmates had to say, you will have thought about who would do the best job about making positive changes in our school community and represent the ideas of your class.

On Wednesday afternoon, it was time to decide who would be elected by voting for the candidates.  Voting is private and you don’t have to tell anyone who you have chosen to vote for.  If you are standing for election, you may choose to vote for yourself.  To cast your vote, you simply need to tick the name of the person you would like to be elected and put your ballot paper in the ballot box.

Our school elections demonstrate our British value of democracy.  Democracy is a system where the people get to choose their leaders and have a say in how their community is run, often through voting in elections. The word "democracy" comes from ancient Greek words for "people" and "to rule," so it literally means "rule by the people". Instead of one person being in charge, everyone gets an equal say in electing representatives who make decisions on their behalf. 

Once the votes have been cast, we, the Prefects, who are a bit  like the members of the House of Lords, if we compare ourselves to the UK Parliament, count them.  The two candidates in each class who have the greatest (most) number of votes will be elected as your M.P.s.

The names of our new MPs will be announced in Friday’s assembly and we would like to wish all of the candidates good luck!