Balloon Launch - Students want to be engaged.

This video was produced by Jordan Bridge a Tomlinscote student who is very passionate about the merger not going ahead.  In the video the chanting of "Keep Kings" by all students sums it up... but perhaps not as well as one Tomlinscote student who asked me "how can they try to take their school away?"  There has been a lot of debate about the place of children within this campaign, worries that they might be seen to be being used by adults or "may not behave in an adult manner".  After an initially shaky start on facebook (involving adults and children) I have been consistently amazed at the maturity of children during this campaign.  Questions that hit right to the heart of the educational debate, in some ways their worries were significantly more on track than the adults as their primary focus was on their education and how this would affect their future lives.  Rather than children being used for political ends I feel the process has been one of children genuinely wishing to engage in the democratic process of "freedom of speech".  For teenagers self expression is a key part of their development and the quality of their response bodes well for the future.  Dare I say the next generation is in a way getting a valuable lesson about involvement in important issues and "the big society" by engagement in a process that is so personal they cannot help but be involved.