REDNOCK students have been giving local politicians a run for their money as they held their own Question Time at the Dursley school.

Over 170 sixth formers watched representatives from the county’s four main parties discuss their views and how they got into politics, as well as tackle some tricky questions from the crowd.

Representing the Conservatives was Cllr Haydn Jones for the Severn Ward and chairman of Stroud District Council Cllr Dennis Andrewartha represented the Liberal Democrats.

Labour’s parliamentary candidate for the Stroud constituency and former MP David Drew also came to the event, as did UKIP’s parliamentary candidate Caroline Stephens.

Chairing the meeting was year 13 student Ellen Watson from Horsley who impressed with her abilities to ensure the politicians answered the questions and clarified their statements.

Each politician gave an introduction of themselves and how they got involved with their respective parties and what they personally stood for.

A large part of the debate centred around university tuition fees after an insightful question from one of the students promped each politician to admit they would not go to university again now because of the massive expense.

Assistant director of the school’s sixth form, Aiden Harvey-Craig, organised the event with economics teacher Anne Hobdell and said it was an excellent day.

“You get the impression that young people are largely disengaged with politics but in this context that certainly wasn’t the case,” he said.

“It ran for an hour but the students all said they wished it could have gone on longer.”

Mr Criag was full of praise for Ellen’s management of the meeting which the pupils found “fascinating” and added they were considering holding it again next year.

“Ellen was just superb as it was not an easy thing to do,” he said.

“She managed the personalities really well and asked them questions to clarify things if they weren’t clear for all the students.”