Each year at Colmers Farm Primary School, our school council (or school parliamentarians as they are known this year) go on a special trip to London. It's always a very early start (6:40 a.m.) and is a very long day, but it is always an amazing visit. This year we joined on this trip by children from Turves Green Primary School (one of the other school's from our Multi-Academy Trust)

The purpose of this trip is to teach the children about democracy and their role as school councillors/parliamentarians. The main part of this visit is a tour of the Houses of Parliament and a lesson about democracy in the Houses of Parliament education department. This year's tour was particularly special, as the MPs were on a break. This meant that we were able to go into the House of Commons and the House of Lords where the MPs and Lords debate. Our lesson this year focused on the suffragettes and how they managed to get the vote for women. 

Whilst in London we also take the opportunity to visit other famous landmarks. This year we visited Buckingham Palace, St James Park, Downing Street (where we made a new friend - The Prime Minster's Cat Larry), Horse Guards Parade and Trafalgar Square. We also had a special tour of Westminster Abbey and a lesson there about how the Abbey had developed over time and the role it played in the development of the Houses of Parliament. 

The children throughly enjoyed this visit and they were great ambassadors for their schools. We even received an email from a member of the public who shared the train back from London with us complimenting them. Well done everybody you were fantastic from start to finish! 

We hope that you enjoy watching the video below which shows the photos from our visit. We apologise that Larry the Cat features so often - We really did get rather exciting to meet him :)