Your vote counts!

At nursery on Thursday we had our very own European Referendum Vote.

As part of our British values curriculum, which is woven through our planning for the children's personal, social and emotional development, it is important to teach the children about the democracy of Great Britain so that they know that they are entitled to their opinion and that their opinion counts. 

We looked at at some of the advertising that they may have seen in the run up to the referendum and talked about the fact that every grown up had to make a 'big decision' about whether they wanted to 'make choices and be friends with' lots of different countries in Europe or whether they'd rather 'make the choices on their own' just in Great Britain. 

We showed the children our voting slips, talked about where and how you vote and that is is very important that you use your vote to voice your ideas. We all had a go at voting by putting a cross next to the Union Jack or the European flag, reminding the children that they could only vote once. We said that when we had voted, the votes had to be counted and then we would find out who had won.

The children were really excited to tell their grown ups about our vote and eager to find out the results the next day. 

The next day we broke the news that unlike the real vote, in nursery more children (60%)  wanted to 'remain' and make choices with other people in Europe compared to less (40%) who wanted to leave Europe and just make choices in their own.