Each year the PSA allocates funds toward our School Grant. This money is available to our School members who are encouraged to apply and use the grant to support events or initiatives that help promote the study of or increase engagement in politics with their students. 

We recently supported the Burford School Parliament to visit the Houses of Parliament in London.

Year 7 student Hani James sent us this report of their day:

“As a new School Parliament with 4 representatives for each year group, 7 to 13, we set of by coach from school to the Houses of Parliament. This meant that we could see a few extra famous London landmark which was a nice way to start our day (even though Big Ben was covered!).

When we arrived, we walked around and we were able to stand by lots of statues of famous people like Winston Churchill, Nelson Mandela and Millicent Fawcett. We walked all around Whitehall, past Churchill’s War rooms and even saw Downing Street. Once we had got to the Parliament Education Centre we were greeted by our guides who took us into Central Lobby that divides off to the House of Lords and the House of Commons – it was stunning with lots of artwork that was very old. We then went into the Commons to see them debating which was very interesting. After that we went into the Lords which was surprisingly different: there were far more people in there, it was louder, and they kept interrupting each other which surprised me.

Finally, we went into a room where we did a workshop about how to be good representatives. We were put into politics parties and had to decide what we would spend the governments money on. It was difficult as we had budgets so if we wanted more money to go towards one cause then we had to take money off another. Once we had decided one person from our team (our party leader) had to present our ideas and then the rest of the people in the room had to vote for what party they wanted to elect. Once we had done this, we left parliament and went back to the coach.

Overall, I really enjoyed the trip and I thought that it as a great opportunity for us to see how MPs and the government works and how they manage the country for real.”

Hani James (Year 7) 
Burford School

For more information on our School Grant please visit our Schools section of the website.