YEAR 8 grammar school pupils recently visited the House of Commons to discuss racism in England.

Inspired by a children’s book that tackles the issue of racism with the aim of encouraging future generations to eradicate it, pupils from Herschel Grammar School in Slough visited Parliament on Tuesday, November 15.

The book in question was Arvan Kumar’s The Heartstone Odyssey, a fantasy about an Indian dancer and a mouse in their quest to find the Heartstone, spanning two hundred years and touching on the deepest and sometimes most sensitive elements of the relationship between India and Britain.

The children heard speeches from the author’s wife and others about the journey and background of the book which was first heard on a train in India in 1985.

The children also presented some of their work to MPs and took part in an experiment to discover how hate crimes affect people’s lives and how and why it should stop.

Pupil Hemani Sandal said: “As I have been learning more and more about the book, I am opening my eyes even further to the happenings of the real world, in which hate is still a big matter, affecting some people in the worst way possible.”