Global Spotlight Winners

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Published: Thursday, 16 July 2015 12:27

Well we say it every year but this competition just gets hotter and the children never fail to amaze us; 7th July saw the final of Global Spotlight competition at The Platform in Swindon.

This year, five teams gave inspiring presentations in front of an audience, which included dance, raps, plays, songs, and animations on themes of Climate Change, Fairtrade, Children's Rights, Industry and Animal Extinction. The standard was incredibly high and the judges felt that the maturity that all teams displayed in response to some rigorous questioning was impressive. In the end, it was the team from Westlea Primary, with their presentation on Children's Rights who won the day. Eleven lucky children and their teacher will be visiting their MP, Robert Buckland on 15 July in the Houses of Parliament, and will be asking him what he can do as an MP to promote the Rights of the Child.

Manager of WGEC, Caroline Harmer, explained: 'This competition is a sure and tested way of engaging children, both with the democratic process and the role they can play as active global citizens. They identify the issue that they would like to find out more about and we provide the school workshop so that they have a firm basis of knowledge on which to build their oral presentation. We are also keen to know what work they have done to spread the word in their own schools via assemblies and other means, and out into the wider community. Well done to all of the teams and their teachers who helped them prepare.'

This year we had raps, poems, plays, animations and news reports and the quality of all of the children's work was astonishing. It was a close run thing but in the end it was the team from Westlea, with their presentation on Children's rights, who were the winners.

They're off to London on the 15th July to discuss children's rights with their MP Robert Buckland in the Palace of Westminster, and with Britain talking about withdrawing from the European Bill of Rights, there is no better time.

What an end to the school year for them.

Read Swindon Advertiser article

Global Project News Letter - Westlea Warrior Winners

With determination, lots of very hard work and bravery, we are happy to announce that we won. Our presentation was about 'Child Labour and Children's Rights'. After weeks of hard work, we managed to impress the judges with our short film and presentation.
When we found out that child labour was worldwide (including Britain), we were really concerned and wanted to get the message across. We felt heart-broken when we found out facts like 215 million children have all work and no play. Because of this, we would like to spread the message and for people to help stop child labour. We chose this subject because we knew it was a unique subject. We are grateful and appreciative that we have won and are glad we can sort this important dilemma with Robert Buckland MP for Swindon South.

Wednesday July 15th
Our reward for our Global Spotlight work was an amazing daytrip to London where we visited the Houses of Parliament to meet the MP for South Swindon, Robert Buckland.

When we all arrived at the Swindon train station, we were so excited, but also very anxious about the trip ahead; some of us had never been on a train before, let alone a tube. We took a couple of pictures to remember the Houses of Parliament and the journey on the train. Unfortunately, whilst on the London Underground, we had to hold on tightly to the rings and poles because the train was fast and we were thrown everywhere!

When we were in London, were all very happy and had a clear view of Big Ben. We had our lunch and then it was time to go to the Houses of Parliament where we had several security checks (most of us were terrified of this part of the trip!). We met our tour guides called Ben and Andrew who showed us around most of the exciting things we could enjoy and we learnt many interesting facts. Finally, they led us to a committee where we would meet Robert Buckland and present our winning presentation to.

We showed Robert our presentation and to our delight, he really enjoyed it and explained that he was already interested in issues surrounding Children's Rights and Child Labour. After the presentation, we asked him a series of questions about children's rights and how he could improve play facilities in Swindon. He was happy to help with the actions requested. We named some play facilities in Swindon that we weren't 100% happy with and were in need of improvement.

After all this excitement, we bought some souvenirs so we could remember the day forever. Then we headed back to Westminster and went on the underground again but this time we managed to get seats. When we arrived at Paddington, our lovely teachers treated us by getting us all to a delicious McFlurrys from McDonalds.
After the long day we took our journey home. Everyone was tired but we all had great fun and will never forget the memorable day!

by Westlea Global Spotlight Team