On returning from a recent visit to Parliament we discovered that we had acquired an extra pencil. It was a House of Commons crested green one with a rubber at one end. Intriguingly, the letters GB were written neatly on it.
After a trawl to discover its owner we realised that we must have picked it up by mistake at the Commons.
One pupil offered that it might belong to Gordon Brown. I suggested that if it was his, what might he use it for? What did they think it had already written, or changed, since it had a rubber? We agreed that it was probably used to amend and create laws.
Discussion on the nature of laws was followed by a writing exercise about what might be changed or created if we could use Gordon’s pencil for the day.
Peter Heaney teaches at Steelstown Primary School in Derry.
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