College heads to Parliament

Students Julia Caulfield, Destiny Harema, Mitchell Sterling and Jedd Blenner-Hassett with social studies teacher Charlotte Gipps.

A group of 28 students from Mahurangi College is off to Wellington to meet Prime Minister John Key next week as part of the school’s first trip to Parliament.

As well as meeting the PM, the Year 10 pupils will have sessions with local MPs Tracey Martin and Mark Mitchell, watch Question Time in the house and spend time with the Parliamentary Education team to find out first-hand how democracy works.

There will also be a side visit to the Gallipoli exhibition, The Scale of Our War, at Te Papa.

The three-day trip has come about largely thanks to one student’s burgeoning interest in politics, sparked when she attended a UN Youth New Zealand conference in April. Julia Caulfield, of Rainbows End, Matakana, says the Aotearoa Youth Declaration document made her realise the importance of making sure that as many people as possible learn how government works.

“That was the first event I’d attended relating to politics and it really kick-started a lot of things for me, it was a real eye-opener,” she says. “It’s something that everyone should know about and part of it is knowing what we’re voting for.”

After meetings with college staff and Tracey Martin, who is also chair of the Mahurangi College Board of Trustees, the trip to Parliament was devised, and plans put in place for a major Youth Parliament event at the college next July.

Tracey is supporting both initiatives and says there are parliamentary resources available to help.

“We need to get them interested in how democracy works and how they can change it. We have to make sure they make the connection,” she says.

Mahurangi’s head of social studies, Charlotte Gipps, agrees.

“The main purpose of the trip is for them to have a notion of being active, informed citizens, of young people having a voice and being engaged in what’s happening,” she says. “It’s our first such trip, but we’re hoping to repeat it next year because we have had such a positive response.”