As election fever grips the nation ahead of the General Election on 4th July, we held our mock election on Kingham Hill.
Following the surprise result of the 2019 vote on the Hill, when the Plaid Cymru candidate beat the Liberal Democrat candidate by only two votes, our new Plaid candidate had not only his honour but the honour of the people of Wales to defend.
On Monday, pupils heard from all five of our candidates in a special hustings assembly where they laid out the principal elements of each party’s policies. All of them spoke well and held the attention of the sceptical electorate as they each delivered a two-minute speech. And then, with rosettes firmly pinned to their blazers, the candidates hit the campaign trail around the Hill for four days. This year, we had candidates representing the Conservatives, Labour, Liberal Democrats, Plaid Cymru and Reform UK.
On Thursday, as is traditional with UK elections, polls opened in Top School Hall during breaktime and lunchtime. The morning voting session was busy with a brisk turnout; lunchtime was something of a more sedate affair with pupils and staff alike popping into the polling station to exercise their democratic right as they passed by.
The junior houses were among those who voted en masse: almost all of Clyde appeared at breaktime to vote and in so doing attained the highest turnout of all the houses in the election at 80.7%. I wonder whether our new local constituency of Banbury will attract a similar turnout in a week’s time?
The votes were counted overnight and the results were announced in traditional style with Mr Williams as the acting returning officer to the whole school in Chapel on Friday morning:
| Turnout 58.04% | Votes cast | Vote share | Change in share since 2019 |
| Smith (Liberal Democrats) | 52 | 27.96% | -13.74% |
| O’Hanlon (Plaid Cymru) | 47 | 25.27% | -17.33% |
| Robertson (Conservative) | 47 | 25.27% | +12.27% |
| Zibarras (Reform UK) | 20 | 10.75% | +8.55% |
| Blunt (Labour) | 15 | 8.06% | +0.86% |
| Spoilt ballots | 5 | 2.69% |
Fundamentally, our mock election was a bit of fun where we aimed to engage the pupils in the excitement of politics and elections. As part of this, they all received polling cards a few weeks before the vote and we ran the polling station as close to reality as we possibly could. We wanted to show our pupils what the process of voting is like in order that they will be more comfortable with the idea, and more likely to exercise what is both a democratic right and an important civic duty when they are old enough.
Now, of course, all eyes will be on the real thing on 4th July where the power will be in our own hands (along with the stubby pencil on a piece of string). We pray that hearing about our pupils’ enthusiasm for the democratic process will inspire you to head down to your polling station on election day to play your part in shaping the future of our great nation.