CHILDREN at Yorkley Primary School enjoyed learning about the way in which parliament works – with an extra helping hand from somebody who works there.

Class Five pupils welcomed Ms Roz Birch, an outreach worker from the Houses of Parliament, who explained to them the democratic process as part of a Parliament Outreach Programme.

Teaching assistant, Kate Fyffe said: “We had an assembly where the children learnt about parliament and discovered it’s made up in three parts: House of Lords, House of Commons and the Monarch (queen or king).”

The children also learnt how laws/bills are passed and worked in teams and formed their own political parties and created a manifesto.

Kate added: “The children decided what they would do to improve the school such as horse riding lessons, a giant science laboratory for big explosions and mazes where each dead-end contains a quiz question or challenge to solve.

“They then shared their manifestos and presented them to the rest of the class so they could vote for their favourite. Although we had a winning team, they only won by a few seats and did not win over 50 per cent of the overall votes so they had to join two other teams and form a coalition government.

“It was lots of fun for the youngsters and an invaluable lesson and visit.”