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Hodgson High School
EDS recently linked up with Hodgson High School Technology
College in Poulton to create an online voting system as part of
Citizenship, which has for several years now been a statutory
subject on the school curriculum.
The General Election has provided a wonderful opportunity to
teach citizenship lessons in a more immediate and striking way. Bill
Allison, Assistant Head teacher at Hodgson, has taken the
opportunity to create something both different and more
meaningful for most students.
Usually mock elections invite older student candidates to
research background information, write and deliver speeches and
stand for the major political parties, culminating in lively debates
in school assemblies. Bill began to wonder about how many students
other than those directly involved were affected by this process and
this led to him investigating the voting process itself. Not who you
vote for, but how do you vote and what do you have to do to vote. In
an age where at the last General Election more people stayed at home
and voted for the reality TV show "Big Brother" rather than bothered
to go out and vote on General Election day, he finds this trend
worrying to say the least.
Bill was concerned that as voting is secret by its very nature,
and rarely discussed, young people get little if any chance to
practice before the real thing comes along. By then it may already
be too late as young people just don't seem to be voting with their
feet so to speak. In fact just the opposite - they don't seem to
vote at all.
A series of assemblies followed led by Bill "Well it’s a free
country isn't it". In these assemblies it was outlined to students
the importance of learning how to vote, and then onto the mock
elections and how they would operate. Each student was given an A4
sheet of paper divided into four and containing the key manifesto
points of the major parties - Conservative, Green, Labour and
Liberal Democratic. All of the key points were agreed with each
party locally for accuracy.
This is the point where EDS came in. EDS was looking to work in
tandem with local schools as part of its desire to help the local
community. Bill explained his needs to EDS and two programmers were
attached to the school. The programmers created a system, and each
student was provided with a unique password and voting card just
like in a real election. When students voted, they logged onto the
system and a screen appeared that mirrored the voting paper,
students then had ten seconds to confirm their vote, completed in
secrecy.
During the lead up to the voting period form tutors were
encouraged to discuss with students in their forms what each
manifesto suggested and how parties would actually carry out these
policies. Students also realised that voting influences were quite
different. Some would vote in the same way as their parents or
extended families did. Many intuitive questions were asked by the
students who wanted meaningful answers before making their
decision.
During a two week period all 1200 students voted, and
Parliamentary Candidates from all major parties were invited to
witness this phenomenon. The computer system has been designed in
such a way that Bill can observe on how the voting was progressing
as days progressed, allowing him to see the overall scores and
scores by gender, school year, form, etc. The system was designed by
EDS exactly how Bill had suggested. The service from EDS has been
brilliant and without EDS help the project simply could not have
been carried out, it was all Bill had hoped for and more.
It is hoped that the computer system can be leveraged in
the future (with slight amendments) for other topical subjects or
debates, such as the quality of school meals, etc.
And the result of the mock election...all we can say is that the
voting has been interesting and likely to provoke debate similar to
that for the other election happening shortly!!
Our particular thanks go to Richard Hitchins and Richard Shirt
from I*Net for their part in building the online voting system for
Hodgson. | 
4-5-2005
4-5-2005 by