Year 11 legal studies students from across the region played judge and jury on Monday as they prepared for their final year of study.
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Over 150 students from Bendigo Senior Secondary College, Echuca College, Girton Grammar School and Catherine McAuley College converged on the Bendigo law Courts to learn first-hand about the state’s justice system as part of the Victoria Law Foundation’s Headstart program.
Bendigo is the only Victorian town in which the program is run and the VLF’s teacher-in-residence David Thomson said it more than simply a chance for students to hear from the state’s top legal minds.
“The importance of legal studies is not so much preparing people to be lawyers,” he said, noting that as far back as the 1930s Australian-born English judge Lord James Atkin had urged educators to place a greater emphasis on the legal system.
“His view was that every person should have some understanding of their rights and the law. That’s also my view,” Mr Thomson said.
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