Teach Secondary Issue 14.7

1 6 with a ballot Karl Sankey considers how educators should respond to the prospect of their classes including not just young people, but potential voters, too... I n its 2024 manifesto, Labour pledged to lower the voting age to 16 if they came to power. In July 2025, the now Labour government announced it will meet that commitment by seeking to lower the voting age in time for the next General Election, as part of a larger package of electoral reform. ‘Votes for 16’ has long been a staple debate of the politics classroom, with arguments for and against being raised by the very people who would be enfranchised by such a change. So with the debate now seemingly settled, a new question arises for politics teachers and educators at large – how do we prepare young people for this new responsibility? Partypolicy and ideology The stated aim of extending the franchise to 16-year-olds is to ‘increase young people’s engagement with politics’. Well, if that’s to happen, then they’ll need to be taught about it. At present, politics teaching is largely confined to KS5, meaning it will need to extend into KS3/4 if it’s to serve students properly. The easiest way of doing that would be for schools to dedicate space to ABOUT THE AUTHOR Karl Sankey specialises in UK politics, political ideology, and classical and medieval history; follow him via tinyurl.com/ts147-P3 (LinkedIn) political education in their PSHE content, whichmany already do, but typically with a focus on the structures of government. In a world where students are voting, this content will need expanding into examinations of party policy, ideology and the big debates of the day – which will, of course, come with its own issues. One of which is that PSHE tutors may feel they may lack the knowledge needed to answer some of the questions that will arise. Bridging the ‘specialist gap’ We can also expect to see some fears emerge around teachers’ ability to remain politically neutral, but these can be neutralised if politics teachers take a more active role in PSHE development. Having politics teachers lead staff CPD before units are taught could help bridge this ‘specialist gap’, to ensure a high quality of provision in classes taught by non-specialists. Neutrality can be navigated by focusing on specific issues and parties’ policy responses to them, thus mitigating the suggestion that students may be taught ‘biased lessons’ if said lessons are focused on the parties themselves. Another area to look at would be expanding citizenship as a subject, or going further and offering politics as a discrete KS3 or even GCSE subject. Citizenship education is mandatory inmaintained schools – though not in academies – which seems worth keeping inmind as we await the first major update to the National Curriculum since 2013. When Scotland legalised votes at 16 in 2016, it released guidance on political literacy through the ‘You Decide’ resource (see tinyurl.com/ts147-P1 ). This guidance placed an emphasis on citizenship education across primary and secondary, utilising research and debate to bring about achievable participation outcomes, such as surveys, speeches and media creation. Studies have since shown that voter participation has been higher among those who began voting from the age of 16 or 17 in Scotland (see tinyurl.com/ ts147-P2), suggesting that this style of education has likely helped to embed the importance of electoral participation. Extending participation Dedicating mandatory time to this style of teaching will be a harder battle than the PSHE route, however, since any additional citizenship or politics lessons will naturally create timetabling issues and require a pipeline of specialists that’s sparser than it should be. The final thing for politics teachers to consider is utilising currently underused external sources of political education. UK ParliamentWeek (ukparliamentweek.org) , Democracy Classroom (democracyclassroom.com ) and The Politics Project (thepoliticsproject.org.uk ), plus newer ventures such as Political Education for Students (pefs.co.uk ), all provide resources and guidance that can help build a base for curriculum expansion whilst minimising teacher workload. There’s no one-size-fits-all solution to this issue, as regional context and demographics vary from school to school. Yet regardless of the path we choose, it’s clear that politics teachers have a major role to play in developing a curriculum that serves our students – and, indeed, all of our futures at the ballot box. 73 teachwire.net/secondary P O L I T I C S