Aspirations Day 2024: think big, aim high, achieve
By Maariyah Sidat
We were pleased to be invited to take part in the annual Aspirations Day at Mount Pleasant Primary School in Huddersfield again this year.
Trainee solicitors, Maariyah Sidat , Rebecca Wardle and Hannah Nagle and paralegal Sana Mahmood went along and represented Switalskis. They engaged and entertained the children from all year groups with a fun introduction to the law. A rather topical Bluey episode where they sell their house was shown to introduce the subject of conveyancing.
Next up was a quiz of sorts, where we asked: “Is this law real?” The children were baffled to learn that it’s against the law to handle salmon suspiciously or to wear a full suit of armour in the Houses of Parliament!
Finally, Goldilocks was put on trial. Hannah took the part of Goldilocks and did a fabulous job in her portrayal and answering the children’s questions.
The children really gave some thought to their questions. They started out by asking: “Did you eat the porridge?”, trying to catch Goldilocks out. Then they cleverly asked: “If you didn’t eat the porridge how did you know one of the bowls was too sweet?”’
Maariyah said: “We did the presentation for three of the classes. During each trial we helped one of the children to play the role of the judge. Thanks to Razia Jogi from our Care team for lending us a legal gown – the children loved being able to dress the part. They were pretty harsh though and two of the judges sent Goldilocks to jail for her crime of eating the porridge. There was no first offence mitigation accepted by the judge!”
“Thank you to the school for inviting us to take part – we hope the children enjoyed the day as much as we did. Perhaps we’ll see some of the children taking up solicitor training contracts with us in the future.”
You can see more about the day itself on the school’s website - https://www.mountpleasantschool.co.uk/page/aspirations-day/110784 .