Election time is fast approaching with the impending Local Elections, European Elections and the two Dublin By-Elections. This provides the teacher with a great opportunity to use the election atmosphere around us to teach about Ireland’s democracy and the electoral process. Seomra Ranga has produced some new resources to enable the teacher to effectively teach about the electoral process. The resources are contained in an “Elections” special page on the site. Some of the resources, which are free to download, include:
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flashcards of election vocabulary
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elections vocabulary word wall
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a booklet on Ireland’s Democracy
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flashcards of Official Offices that people can hold in Ireland
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posters of the leaders of the main political parties in Ireland at the moment
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flashcards with the names of the main political parties
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flashcards with vocabulary relating to political issues which may be heard during political discourse
Election Day is June 5th so it is opportune to discuss with middle and senior classes in the primary school all about elections and the voting system in Ireland. Why not try having a mock election in your school? Find out the names of all the candidates in your area, make up a ballot paper and hold the mock election. You could then set up a count centre and show how the system of proportional representation (PR) operates. I did this many years ago in a large school and it worked out really well.
