On Friday 16 October 2020, Year 12 and 13 Politics students from Notley High School & Braintree Sixth form were lucky to have a virtual meeting with the Rt Hon James Cleverly, Minister of State and MP for Braintree. 

Mr Cleverly spoke to the class about his role as an MP including his work as Minister for Middle East and North Africa as well as his life experiences which lead him to progress into his political career.  He allowed the students to demonstrate their political interest and knowledge with a series of thought-provoking questions. Topics ranged from routes into politics, to the recent decision to put Essex into Tier Two Covid Alert as well as MP voting records. Mr Cleverly expressed his appreciation of the students taking a political approach in approaching the school with a proposal of setting up A Level Politics as an available course for their future studies while also finding it positive that so many young women were represented in the Politics class as traditionally it is a male dominated environment.

Year 12 student Mollie McGowan said “the talk was very informative and it was a great opportunity to ask questions that cannot be answered by a textbook”.  We would like to thank Mr Cleverly for taking the time to broaden our students’ knowledge and experiences by bringing politics to life.