3M entered a competition organised by ‘First News’ newspaper and won! Four children got the chance to visit the Houses of Parliament, take part in a democracy workshop and then a debate with questions put forward by each school. Betty Boothroyd chaired the debate and Malorie Blackman the children’s author and laureate was on the panel. We debated topics such as ‘There should be more women in Parliament’ to which our chair acknowledged that currently “To be a women in parliament you either need a gem for a granny or enough money for a nanny’. Shalin and Hadi took the floor to debate on the topic of ‘More sports in school’ to which they suggested that although it is important to be fit and healthy, jobs in the future will be much more reliant on technology than physical fitness. Ruwayda stood to tell the house that she believed ‘Creativity in schools is just as important as academic work and that academic work should give us the skills to express our creativity’. Finally, Zaynab put forward our own class question based on our rainforest topic ‘Should Britain play a larger part in protecting the global environment?’ We had a wonderful day but when the organisers tried to get a healthy debate started about less holidays for children and schools on Saturdays, all of our children thought that was a brilliant idea!