Parliamentary Petitions Results

The votes have been counted and the results are in! We asked students to choose one of the four causes we are supporting that are currently live on the UK Parliamentary Petitions website, and the results are as follows;

1) Make mental health education compulsory in primary and secondary schools - 392 votes

2) Work with UK Sport to reinstate GB badminton funding for the next Olympic cycle - 50 votes

3) Make a legal requirement for papers to print corrections at the same size as errors - 67 votes

4) Make British Sign Language part of the National Curriculum - 278 votes

Parliamentary Petitions are a great way of effecting change, and here at The Hathershaw College we are teaching students about the power they have.  Whilst not old enough to vote, they can still have a say on the way Britain is run and governed, shaping the world in which they want to live in.

Students, indeed anyone, can vote on causes they feel passionate about at the Parliamentary Petitions website, or even set up their own petitions in the hope that enough people will support their view. 10,000 votes elicits a written response from the Government of the day, 100,000 votes means that the petition will be openly debated in The House of Commons.

Student assemblies during the week Monday 20th - Friday 24th February were dedicated to this subject.  To demonstrate the power of petitions, we have chosen 4 real-life petitions to support and are asking our students to vote on which they feel is the most worthy cause to them. The paper vote will take place during tutor time on Thursday 2nd March (Friday 3rd March for those in assembly), mimicking the traditional voting style in Britain. In addition, we have set up a Parliamentary Petitions webpage detailing the 4 chosen petitions, with links to the real thing where students can vote for real. The winning petition will be followed all the way through its Parliamentary process.

Also, we have asked for students to suggest their own idea for a petition.  We will then have another whole-school vote in May to select the top four, which will be uploaded to the UK Petitions website and made real - for the whole country to vote on!

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