Day: November 22, 2024

John Cooper, Conservative MP for Dumfries and Galloway, visited Leswalt P6-7 this afternoon as part of their Democracy and Government topic. John explained to the pupils about his role as an MP – representing all 78,000 citizens in D&G at the Parliament in London.

He explained that he works in the House of Commons and gets to ask the Prime Minister questions. The House of Commons is controlled by the Speaker and he isn’t allowed to speak until he’s been invited to do so.

He told the pupils how he became an MP, starting off as a journalist for the local Free Press, before becoming a Special Advisor to Conservative MP at the time, Alistair Jack. He then spent the last year canvassing D&G constituents before being elected on 4th July this year. He very kindly left a copy of his Maiden Speech, which all MPs have to do after being elected, otherwise they can be kicked out of parliament.

John also takes part in votes to introduce new bills and laws. He showed pupils his parliamentary pass which he uses to enter the House of Commons and either the Aye Lobby or No Lobby, depending on how he is going to vote.

Pupils got the opportunity to ask him some questions to help them learn a little more. They learned what he was interest in when he was at school; what his favourite and least favourite aspect of the job is; and how long he is elected for.

A huge thank-you to John for giving up his afternoon to visit us (especially given that he was in London at the parliament yesterday!).

Primary 7 pupils travelled to the Stranraer Campus of Dumfries & Galloway College this morning, as part of Scottish Careers Week. The event was organised by Skills Development Scotland and we were joined by Castle Kennedy, Glenluce and Sheuchan Primaries. After an introduction from Kathryn and Lucy (SDS), we had 3 activities that we worked our way around throughout the morning.

The first activity was learning where the Careers Advisers are located at Stranraer Academy and what their role is. We then played a ‘would you rather…?’ game considering different aspect of various jobs, e.g. would you rather have a job that involved people or animals? We then split into 3 small groups and were given items to look at and had to list any job linked to those items – the careers advisers were impressed that 1 group got over 20 jobs and said that was the most that any school had thought of! Finally, we looked at the My World of Work website and learned about the job profiles sections which helps us to learn about different career options.

Next, we were given a tour of the college. We explored the various college courses that are on offer, including childcare, cookery, carpentry and construction, mechanic, hairdressing and beauty.

Finally, we went into the Skills Development Scotland office in the college. We worked in teams to complete a problem solving challenge – we had to imagine we were stuck on a deserted island surrounded by sharks. There were 5 people on the island with us – a scientist, bodybuilder, banker, doctor and pensioner. The rowing boat that we had could only hold us and 3 others so we had to decide which 3 people we’d take on the boat with us. We used lots of skills throughout this challenge – communicating, listening, compromising, team work and problem solving.

To finish off the morning, we all gathered together and participated in a little competition to win a £10 Greggs voucher – we had 1 questions to answer regarding the careers management skills we had learned about and all slips were put into a box and the winner drawn. Unfortunately, our schools didn’t win, but we had a brilliant morning learning all about the various jobs and careers on offer to us, what options exist locally and how to get advice.