It was a fantastic demonstration of democracy in our school, a key area of British Values which we promote throughout our taught curriculum and wider opportunities.

Prior to the parallel election, Mr Buckley, Assistant Headteacher and Designated Safeguarding Lead, delivered a campaign summary for each of the 5 political party’s students could vote for and their key messages. This included:

• The Conservatives
• Labour
• Reform UK
• Liberal Democrats
• The Green Party

Once voting went live, staff and students were invited to come and vote using online tablets in the hall. There was much excitement around school discussing different political opinions as we all awaited the results of both the UVHS and General Election.

As we all know, Labour won the UK General Election, but what about UVHS? There were a total of 1025 votes cast on Thursday by staff and students, and Labour secured a win again in our school with a total of 397 votes, or just under 39%.  A full breakdown of the UVHS vote can be seen below:

Our school’s results highlighted the importance of active citizenship and how we can all speak to each other positively, and know that everyone’s ideas will be listened to as a demonstration of mutual respect and tolerance of each other.

This ends an academic year of political opportunities and learning points for everyone at UVHS after taking part in:

• Schools Parliament Week UK,
• Nominating representatives for the UVHS School Parliament
• Applying to be Senior Students, Peer Mentors, House Captains and Language Ambassadors
• UVHS gained a “Gold Democracy Award” for the European Make Your Mark Ballot 2024 for the turnout of support from Y7-13. 
• Voting in Head Pupil Teams for the main school and 6^th form.

Students in our school value being able to stand for positions of responsibility, and in our most recent July campaign for the 6^th Form Head Pupils and their deputies, Y12 had a 95% turnout (151/159) to vote for their team of 8 for the following academic year. There were an unprecedented 25 candidates this year, all who prepared pitches and videos which the whole year group watched. Students then exercised their right to vote (Or not to vote.) The successful 8 candidates all came from a variety of different feeder secondary schools as well as one from UVHS. An excellent example of integration and democracy in KS5. You can see a photo of the new team and more information here: Senior Head Student Team on Facebook

More information can be found out about British Values at UVHS here: UVHS British Values