Warlingham School students (from left): Bilal Shariff, Ella
Ovenden, April Gunn, Alex Smith and Lucas Johncey.

On Saturday 16th November a group of Warlingham School sixth form students headed off to Guildford Crown Court to participate in a charity-run event, the Bar National Mock Trials, run by the Citizenship Foundation.

The charity run a variety of events to try and encourage and inspire young people in to participating in society and help them get a better understanding of the law, politics and democratic life. Each year around 2,000 students from Year 10 to Year 13 participate.

The group of Year 12 and 13 students spent several weeks preparing their roles for the trial. This year the school had a group of Year 12 students acting as jury and one student, Lucas Johncey, acting as court clerk. The rest of the students from Year 13 played several different roles including barristers, witnesses and defendants.

On the day of the trial the students had to participate in two court hearings before the judges decided which two schools would take part in the finals for the London region. The winning team would get the chance to go to Cardiff in March to take part in the finals with all the other regional winners.

The first two rounds were cases on fraud and assault, where the students would be judged on their skills and contributions by the head judge at the front of the court. Warlingham’s students had two very strong rounds which left them with a place in the finals for the London region.

Unfortunately for the Warlingham students the other team from Tunbridge Wells Girls’ Grammar School gained more points in the final and won overall, but it was a very close call. Although Warlingham came extremely close to winning but ended with second place, the team was overjoyed with the outcome and the experience has only pushed them to work harder and improve.