Government and Politics
Head of Department: Mr J.D.C. Gillings
Politics will always exist, because people disagree; we disagree about how we should live (moral questions), about who should get what (resource questions), and about who should make decisions (power questions). Politics is therefore the study of the process by which people can live together within the same society. It is a discipline which seeks to establish the rules and limits of human conduct. As such, it is the most necessary of all social and intellectual activities. This activity raises further questions of participation and representation, and what ‘citizenship’ may mean.
The Politics Society runs a series of invited speakers, which has recently included MPs, American pollsters, and the leader of UKIP. We also hold a Politics Forum on Thursday afternoons, where pupils of all ages are encouraged to come and discuss the issues of the day. During the 2010 campaign we held a lively school-wide mock election, complete with hustings, campaigning, and voting by Boarding House constituencies.
The Department organises annual visits to the Houses of Parliament, the organisations of the EU in Brussels, and an annual U6th visit to Washington DC, where we have excellent contacts, and where groups of pupils in recent years have managed to meet both President Obama and his predecessor. In the future, as part of the Pre U course, we intend to visit Australia to study their political system.
The Department is staffed by:
Mr J.D.C. Gillings BA
Mr M.J.G. King LLB
Course content
The Politics course is open only to pupils in the Sixth Form. We follow the new Cambridge Pre-U curriculum, which is linear and does away with modules, units and coursework provisions. It is designed to be challenging and intellectually rigourous. It allows us to examine the UK political system in real depth, but also to look at common processes and problems across other political systems as well.