Over the past year, the UK Parliament has celebrated the 10 year anniversary of its e-petitions platform. As part of this, its Education and Engagement Outreach team developed a bespoke programme on e-petitions for its annual UK Parliament Week programme to better establish connections between communities and petitions.
UK Parliament Week 2025 with the Outreach Team
The UK Parliament runs an annual outreach programme every November, which lasts about a week. Known as the UK Parliament Week, it consists of a series of events and activities across the UK that connects people with Parliament and democracy.
For UK Parliament Week 2025, the Education and Engagement Outreach team delivered a bespoke programme exploring the Power of Petitions. The theme marked the 10‑year anniversary of e‑petitions, the digital tool that enables the public to raise issues with Parliament.
In response, the team focused on educating classrooms and communities about how petitions work and how they can break down barriers to participation.
Bespoke activities
For school and college assemblies, the team developed interactive quizzes exploring e‑petitions, their rules, and the role of signatories, using real‑life examples from the past decade and linking directly to the e‑petitions website.
They also created a card sort game inspired by historic petitions from the Parliamentary Archives, highlighting the long‑standing relationship between public voices and social change.
The final part of the programme featured a creative activity for workshops, SEND groups, and community organisations, through which participants illustrated their own petition ideas on an outline of their hand (see feature image). This encouraged creative self‑expression and reinforced the historic link between signatures and democratic participation.
Reaching audiences nationwide
In one week, the team reached 11,248 young people through 81 interactive school and college sessions. Beyond education settings, they engaged 239 community participants, working with organisations including The King’s Trust, Mencap, and the Third Age Trust to make petitioning Parliament accessible to all.
“It was great using the new Petitions resources during November as they brought a different focus to my sessions and really showed the groups I worked with how they could directly engage with Parliament in a meaningful way. Many of the groups signed petitions during the workshop and one even started to set their own up.” – Rachael Dodgson, Outreach Officer for the North West
Linking to research
These educational outreach activities align with Professor Leston‑Bandeira’s recommendations on reducing barriers to parliamentary engagement by “disseminating the value of petitioning to all citizens.” They also support deeper collaboration with classrooms and community networks nationwide, contributing to the development of a “citizen‑focused parliamentary petitions system” that helps communities to understand and engage with Parliament (Leston‑Bandeira, 2024).
Learn more
To learn more about where they went, what they delivered, and life as a UK Parliament Outreach Officer, explore the team’s visual story: Outreach’s Parliament Week 2025
Feature image: Using creative approaches to connect communities to petitions – Copyright UK Parliament