Houses of Parliament

A group of Sixth Form students took a trip to the Houses of Parliament earlier this week. Below is an account of the trip written by one of the attending students.

"Karine , what time is it now?" I asked hurriedly. "It is now 11:25am, 15 minutes left." Karine replied. A few minutes later, I asked her again, "How many minutes left? I am too excited. I cannot wait to go to the Houses of Parliament and listen to the MPs debating."
 
Due to the reason that a group of four students were too excited by the visit , An one and a half hour journey to go to the Parliament as if it was just five minutes. There was a security check system before we could get inside Parliament. The security check was so rigid that it required all of our personal photos to ensure that there were no unwelcome persons who could disrupt the parliamentary proceedings.
 
Shortly after, we got inside Parliament. There was a solemn ceremony before we could go into the House of Commons and listen to the debates. We were all deeply impressed by the atmosphere as everyone stood up to show appreciation and respect when the MPs came out - it was exhilarating! I should have taken photos of this moment, but unfortunately, cameras were not allowed in the Central Lobby.
 
During the debate, I observed two important points. Firstly, the sitting area for visitors was separated from the MPs by a piece of glass. This has strongly shown an existence of a genuine democratic system in the UK whereby citizens not only have the freedom to speak, but also have the freedom to listen. Compare this with my country - China. We have limited rights to speak as most of the media is restricted by what they can announce.
 
Secondly, the conventions are surprisingly informal compared to China. For instance, one of the MPs put his feet on the table, but none of the others seemed to be shocked by this. However, there was one exception which is worth mentioning - MPs can only express their opinion after the permission of the Speaker of the House of Commons, and nobody else is allowed to say anything when someone is speaking. I believe that if we were to adopt this convention at school, teaching and learning would be much more effective.
 
I have been studying in Ashford school for six months, and going to the Houses of Parliament has been one of my greatest memories. I hope the school will organise more trips I can go on in the future in order to broaden the students' horizon.

Yoko Li, Lower Sixth pupil