Mary Reid

I decided to wimp no longer, take some Beechams, and throw myself into local democracy again. 

So we welcomed a group of Kingston University students, who are all training to be primary school teachers, to the Guildhall to talk about citizenship. I think they were pretty surprised to learn from Andrew Bessant just how many services are provided by the council.

My job was to talk about citizens and councillors, and given my interests I homed in on participation in local democracy, and how children can learn about it and get involved. 

I repeated something I've said many times before - children are not citizens-in-the-making, they are citizens already. They deserve to be listened to, and decision-makers have a duty to listen to them, because they experience their environments in a different way from adults, so can inform debate from a new perspective.

Over the last four or five years I've been involved in lots of initiatives around the citizenship curriculum, including the election of the Kingston Member of the UK Youth Parliament, the establishment of Kingston Youth Council as a consultative body of the Council, and online surgeries for young people with MPs and councillors.

Then last year, as Mayor, I visited a number of primary school councils to discuss with them how they could improve life in their areas - Lovelace plus their excellent suggestions , Fern Hill, St Mary's and again,  St Paul's Primary, St Josephs',  The Mount. (I've put in all the links so the students can follow through the process if they are reading this)