ELECTIONS have been held at Wye Valley School in an attempt to combat youngsters' voting apathy during elections.

Wye Valley School, in New Road, Bourne End, has been holding elections for students to become part of the school's governing body.

Campaigns were launched which included hustings and flyers among other small-scale publicity for students wishing to put themselves forward for election.

David Lang, election organiser, said: "We wanted to educate our pupils in the importance of voting, following the disappointing lack of response of young people in the recent general elections."

The winner was announced last Friday during a special assembly with local MP Dominic Grieve.

Alex Mcilvenney, a sixth former at Wye Valley School, said he was 'relieved' to have won the election.

He said: "The whole campaign was quite daunting as we were only informed about it two weeks ago, so we didn't have much time to put our campaigns together, but all the candidates put a lot of effort into their campaigns."

The other candidates were David Bowles and Emily Gray.

Alex's new responsibilities involve meetings with governors of the school, and being in charge of an Opinions Box that students can use to suggest ways of improving school life.

Mr Grieve said: "I think this sort of activity could help to get youngsters voting in elections. This election has a very good turnout."

He added: "The lad who won had an overwhelming majority and everyone seemed very pleased to get somebody on the governing body."