Bugtastic Party a late addition
YEAR six pupils at St Bernadette’s School are getting a civic education thanks to the Otago Daily Times.
The pupils will use the special election liftout from yesterday’s edition as reading material to inspire the creation of their own political parties.
Teacher Gerard Shaw said it was the second time senior pupils at the school had based study around a New Zealand election.
The pupils created eight political parties with names ranging from ‘‘The new vision’’ to ‘‘Bugtastic’’ and ‘‘The spectacular super party’’.
Each party was tasked with creating its own campaign, policies and promotion material to generate votes from other pupils at the school, Mr Shaw said.
The parties would also pro mote a New Zealand book award which other pupils could vote for so the mock election process also included MMP, he said.
Pupil Ruby de Graaf said she had researched Act New Zealand leader David Seymour as part of the project.
‘‘I looked him up on Google to see what he looked like.
‘‘I didn’t like the look of his face at all.’’
The pupils had mixed views on whether it was important for young people to vote, but all said they would encourage their parents to vote.
Seven of the eight party leaders said they would vote for Jacinda Ardern if they were able to.
Many of the pupils said they became aware of who the political leaders were through their parents and the newspaper.
Jack Wilson (11) said elections could be ‘‘boring’’ when they were not close, but he was excited about this election because it was close.
The pupils would read a couple of pages of the ODT liftout each day this week.