Sophie will now visit London with one of her parents and her form tutor, Mrs. Wright, on 27th February for judging of the British finals. Her itinerary includes visits to the House of Commons and the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, a trip to the London Eye and an Evening Buffet and Celebrity Prize Giving at the National Union of Teachers’ Headquarters!

Particular congratulations to Sophie and Laura and well done to all who put in so much effort. Good luck, too, to Sophie in the national finals. Thanks, too, to Mrs. Davies for all her hard work in providing pupils with the chance to participate.

Though they are no longer the sponsors of the National Youth Parliament Video Competition, everybody still calls it ‘the Motorola’ - and this year, for the twelfth successive year, we changed our main hall into the ‘House of Commons’ and 250 pupils conducted their versions of the Speaker’s Procession, Prime Minister’s Question Time and a second reading of a Bill.

Jon-Paul Rowden was Prime Minister and Katy Lee, Rebecca Halas, Louise Fell, Emma Fairhall, Jess Davies, Chris Young and James Morgan were among those taking on other particularly demanding roles. Shaun Robinson and Emma Feeney made very early contributions to the video being made and they asked searching questions of the ‘Prime Minister’.The Bill that was debated was to make identity cards compulsory and Siobhan McMillan, David Rowlands, Carolyn Sanderson, Jim Menzies, Alex Smallwood, Kelly Naisbitt, Jenny Bowden and Rachel Bradley were among those who spoke for or against the motion. In his third year as Mr. Speaker, Andrew Tallentire was again outstanding and he was ably supported by Natalie Hubbard, Andrew Tunley, Laura Wright, Nikki Dwyer and Lucy Matthew. All of Year 7 acted as backbench MPs and they were great!