On Wednesday, 26th February, members of the Parliament of south Australia’s Community Education & Engagement office visited Cummins Area School to educate our year 5, 6, 7, & 8 classes on how parliament and voting works in our country. The sessions were fun and hands on, and our students were engaged throughout. Some of the things taught were:
Administering elections: the role of Electoral Commission of South Australia, stages in an election
Participating in democracy: enrolling to vote, being informed and voting responsibly
Exploring the features of Australian elections: secret ballot, compulsory voting, preferential voting
A mock election
How government is formed
Learning about the levels of government
Learning about the structure and functions of the Parliament of South Australia
Here’s what year 6 Student, Jesse Lance, wrote about her experience:
"On Wednesday the 26th February the year 5/6 classes went to see some people who taught us about the roles/jobs of people in the house of assembly, legislative council and what jobs are done on voting days.
In the first presentation, we were taught what people do in different parts of government and politics, how many people need to be in the House of Assembly, and what the House of Assembly looked like. They had lots of equipment that showed us exactly what the different parts of Government looked like. We each chose a side of the room to stand on, and then three people were chosen to be the Speaker of the House, Clerk and Sergeant at Arms. One side of the room was the current ministers in power, and the other was the Shadow Ministers. We learnt that the Legislative Council is similar, but they have a President, Usher of the Black rod and a Clerk.
After the first presentation, we were bought to the art room where we were given a piece of card wit ha problem on it that could be put into 3 different types of things with different people running it (depending on how big of an impact that makes). After that, we had to vote on what we were going to have for tea and people were chosen to help with different jobs for the voting. After all our jobs were allocated, we went up to a polling booth and voted from 1-4 on what we’d like to have to eat for dinner. The votes were then counted, and Hawaiian Pizza won!"
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