Welcome to our blog. We want to tell you what exciting things we are doing in our schools in Tottenham. This week, pupils from St Francis de Sales School report on a trip to parliament.

Mr Dal Babu is one of St Francis de Sales’ newest recruits. He organised the visit by the School Council to the House of Commons. Pupils Marianne Chabaan and Shinee Gunasekara interviewed him about the trip.

Marianne: Did you enjoy the visit?
Mr Babu: The visit was brilliant. It was great to see children from Tottenham learn about democracy.

Shinee: Are you interested in politics?
Mr Babu: I was lucky enough to run a security team in the House of Commons and was able to speak with the parliament. I had breakfast with Tony Benn once!

Marianne: Do you want to go on another trip like this?
Mr Babu: I would love to, and will be planning one in the new term after Easter.

Marianne: How do you think this benefits the School Council?
Mr Babu: We got some great advice from Keith Vaz MP. I particularly liked his answer to a question on how you deal with complaints. This will be very useful when we speak to the school’s new catering company!

Shinee: Did you learn anything new?
Mr Babu: I did not realise how good Marianne and Shinee were at answering questions!

Tottenham Independent: Egondi with David Lammy, MP for Tottenham

Egondi reports on the School Council's meeting with Keith Vaz, Labour MP for Leicester East and Leader of the Home Affairs Select Committee.


On Thursday 20th March 2014, we met Keith Vaz and asked him some intelligent questions and he gave us some very good answers. 

One of the questions we asked him was about the best question he could ask at the Home Affairs Select Committee. He said that ‘why’ is always the best question to ask.

How do you encourage people to answer questions?
Make sure that you look them in the eye and do not let them waffle you. Tell them, "I want you to answer this question." This includes your teachers and I am sure they will reply.

What advice would you give if they do not answer the question properly?
Well, in the House of Commons we can call the police to keep them here until they answer, but you may need to have a bank of questions ready. If they are evasive on one, have another one ready for them. Make sure you do not run out of questions.

What is the best question you have asked at the Home Affairs Select Committee?
Why, what, when and how . Focus on:
Why they are doing that?
When they are doing that?
What is making them do something? 
How will they do it?

As anybody really annoyed you by the way answered questions at the House of Commons?
I always make sure people answer my questions, even if I need to ask it again. I tell you who I really enjoyed answering questions: Russell Brand. He was great and to the point with no flannel.

Today is the Budget debate. Have children and schools been given any extra money?
Well I think there is going to be extra money for childcare so you parents or carers can claim money some money back from the government.