Justin Visits Great Western Academy To Meet The School Parliament & Radio Club

North Swindon MP Justin Tomlinson has visited The Great Western Academy to see how it has progressed since opening in September.

The £21 million new school was announced in March 2015 after a long campaign by Justin and is set to open in the Tadpole Garden Village area of town next month.

Justin actively lobbied Ministers to ensure that secondary school places in North Swindon kept pace with growing demand, and worked to ensure that this new state-of-the-art facility was built in a location where students would be able to access the site easily.

He helped to break ground on the site, and fixed in place the final beam of the new school ahead of it opening.

During his latest visit Justin received a tour of the school, met the School Parliament, and was interviewed by the school Radio Club.

Osa Iluobe who was doing work experience and joined Justin on the visit and wrote up her thoughts:

Justin Tomlinson MP visited the Great Western Academy in Tadpole Farm which opened in September 2018 a few years after he laid the first foundations for the school. The visit started off with an assembly which consisted of a game in which 3 enthusiastic students made their claims as to why they should be elected as the political candidate for the school. Sports, Harry Potter and Music were the agendas which the students decided to address in an attempt to secure the votes from their peers and in the end it was sports which came out on top in a landslide victory.

Following on from the fun assembly Justin was given a tour of the school grounds in which he got to see the excellent facilities which the new school possesses such as the assembly hall, classrooms, library and dining area as well as a view of the outdoor spaces. An aspect of the school which Justin was particularly impressed with was the wide-ranging extra-curricular activities which pupils at the school participate in and Justin was given a taste of this as he first sat down with the pupils in the schools’ Parliament to take some questions. Impressive questions were put to Justin ranging from the environment to the importance of education and the pupils were interested to hear the views of Justin on such matters and engaged well in the process.

The final stage of the visit consisted of a meeting with the pupils in the Great Western Academy Radio Club who meet every Wednesday after school, which is also one of many extracurricular activities which the pupils can get involved in. Political related questions with regards to Brexit , the Honda situation and Conservative Party values were put forward as well as more personal ones with regards to Justin’s life prior to politics. Alike the school Parliament, the students displayed an interest in what had to be said and it is very encouraging that the school are catering to the interests of their students via the various extracurricular activities which are at the disposal of the pupils.

Overall Justin was very impressed and encouraged by the approach taken by the school and is assured that as it continues to admit more children, it will help to develop them all with the help of the amazing school staff.