Nat shares this new from Ryde Academy. Ed
With the Fixed Link campaign in the media again, Ryde Academy has been celebrating the British value of democracy by holding their very own Solent Tunnel fixed link referendum.
Year 10 GCSE Citizenship students organised the referendum and spent a week battling out fierce campaigns on both sides.
The ‘Yes’ campaign delivered assemblies on why it was a good thing in order to win the vote. The ‘No’ campaign published their arguments in the school newsletter and distributed ‘No-Link’ flyers around the Academy.
Corridors rich with debate and opinion
With the campaigning over, students were given their ballot papers and went to the polls at breaktime to cast their vote.
The corridors were rich with debate and opinion and the end of break time bell signaled closure of the polls.
No vote won
Year 10 students spent their lunch time counting the ballot papers which really did mimic a frantic election night!
The final result was: The No vote had won with 57%, whilst the Yes campaign received 43%.
62 votes made the difference and students were quick to realise that if 31 people voted Yes, then the result would have been different.
The Yes campaign were honourable in their defeat despite a few claims of corruption and hacking!
Impressive participation and engagement
Mr Sweet, Head of Citizenship said,
“Whilst students cannot vote in a real election yet, I am really impressed by their participation and engagement with political and local issues.”
Image: kodakviews under CC BY 2.0
