January 27, 2025

Local Member of Parliament visits Mercia Academy

In January, we were thrilled to welcome our local Member of Parliament Samantha Niblett to Mercia Academy.

Upon arrival, Samantha – who was elected as the Labour MP for South Derbyshire in last year's General Election – was taken on a tour of our new temporary school building by Principal Jackie Cooper and Executive Principal Sally Wicken.

Next, Samantha met with a selected number of students who enjoyed posing a collection of pre-prepared questions to her.

She spoke about life as an MP, her passion to ensure equity of opportunity in education and highlighted the importance of technology in schools, explaining how she has plans to bring big technology companies – the likes of Snapchat, Facebook and Google – to the local area to meet with young people and show them “the art of the possible.”

“It was lovely to welcome Samantha Niblett to Mercia Academy and to show her round our modern, purpose-built building,” said Ms Cooper.

“Our students had lots of questions for her and were really interested in her role and plans for the future"

“She also met with Trust leaders to discuss the new building that Mercia Academy will move into, and the fantastic, further opportunities that it will offer students for academic and vocational study.

“It was great to have her at our school and brilliant to have such insight into the work that she does,” Ms Cooper concluded.

On visiting Mercia, Samantha said: “It was terrific to revisit Mercia Academy this week,” she said. 

“The real highlight was chatting to some of the children who had some brilliant questions to ask me.  

“I can’t wait to go back!” 

A huge thank you to Samantha for taking time out of her day to visit us at Mercia.