SLOUGH, UK—Students were invited to speak in front of politicians last week with only two days to prepare.
Six pupils from a range of years at Khalsa Secondary Academy, in Stoke Poges, read speeches, poems and even rapped to MPs in the Houses of Parliament as keynote speakers to celebrate Guru Nanak’s birthday.
The school was invited to take part in the celebration of the founder prophet of Sikhism on Monday last week ready to attend the event on Wednesday last week.
Prabhjot Basram, a Year 10 pupil, who was voted in as the school’s prime minister in May, said: “It was kind of a shock to be asked, it’s a once in a lifetime thing.
“It was a challenge but it was also exciting.”
Year 9 student Sachman Singh was asked to write a poem for the occasion, with just one day’s notice as he was off school ill on the Monday.
Rose Codling, school principal, said: “Practically every student volunteered, it was a really difficult job to choose them.
“We wanted to choose a variety of different age groups.”
Four of the pupils were in Year 9, one was in Year 10 and Year 7 Rhyone Hodge-Johnson was there to represent the school’s youngest students.
Rhyone wrote and performed a rap to the MPs about Guru Nanak. He said: “There aren’t many people doing raps about things that actually matter, they are normally about money and women.
“It’s not that normal for someone to go to the Houses of Parliament and rap, but I wanted to face the stereotype and show that rapping doesn’t have to be about things like that.”
Tayla Mack, who read a speech on Guru Nanak’s actions showing a step towards gender equality and what it’s like to be a non-Sikh student in a Sikh ethos school, said: “We could see the MPs coming in the room and at the end when everyone was going up to speak they all mentioned us and said we were very inspiring.
“I think that hearing children talk about equality showed them how important it is.”
