This week we have been working with the 9^th and 11^th grades in The Arab Institute. With the 9^th grade we have been giving them more information about the twinning project. We also found out a bit more about how they celebrated their Eid weekend.

We are working with them this week so that each student in the 9^th grade can write a paragraph to the students of Acland Burghley telling them how they celebrated Eid. Look out for that.

With the 11^th grade, we have had two lessons where we have talked about voting systems and elections in the UK and Palestine. 

11th Grade in The Arab Institute

We introduced them to two types of voting systems and asked them which one they preferred:

-         First passed the post (FPTP) which is used in the general elections

-         The Alternative Voting System (AV) which is used in the local elections

We discussed also discussed two types of elections with them:

-         Local elections

-         National elections

After these discussions the 11^th grade were split into two groups and had a class debate about the advantages and disadvantages of voting in Palestine. They came up with some interesting arguments:

Voting	Not Voting
Helps people say what the government should do	All of the parties want to be in power and do not care about what the people really want
Voting is good and fair to everyone	No parties can make changes because of the occupation
Lets parties show their ideas	There is internal division in Palestine (Hamas in Gaza and Fateh in West Bank) so first the parties need to unite before voting
Parties have chance to explain their policies so people can vote for the one they agree with the most	Voting should be carried out at the same time all over Palestine
Improves social life	Voting should be counted properly with no corruption or cheating
Coalitions can be formed which is good when more than one party is popular	Even though 1.5 million people can vote, only 500,000 registered to vote but only 250,000 actually voted so the results do not show popular opinion
The party that the majority vote for is in power

Do the students at Acland Burghley think that the same arguments can be made about voting in England?