Lesson video

Hello, and welcome to our lesson today.

My name's Mr. Miskell, and I'll be your citizenship teacher for today's lesson.

Now, before we get started with what we're going to be doing together, I'd like to make sure that you've got a few things sorted.

You need to make sure that you have got a pen, that you've got a sheet of paper, and that also you're in a quiet space so that you can participate in our lesson today.

If you've not got either one of those three things in place, then feel free to pause the lesson now and restart it when you've got all those three things sorted.

Now today's lesson is an exciting and interesting lesson.

We are going to take part in a deliberative debate.

And we're really going to be thinking about how has COVID-19 affected our rights.

Now, in order to do that, we are going to be thinking about this in a number of different steps.

And the first thing that we're going to do is we are going to recap on the Convention of the Rights of the Child, a document that we've looked at in previous lessons that protects young people, children's rights.

Then we're going to have a little look and try and talk a little bit about what we actually mean by this term deliberative debate, which is something that we use in citizenship lessons quite a lot.

And then we're going to prepare our arguments through a mind map, and what that's going to do is it's going to run you through the series of lessons about how has COVID-19 impacted our rights, bring them all together so that you can create your own speech.

And ideally, at the end of this, you'll be able to present your own speech to maybe someone in your own family or a friend, perhaps in person or perhaps via video.

So, let's get started with our lesson today.

Now the first thing that we said that we were going to look at was about the Convention on the Rights of the Child.

Now the Convention of the Rights of the Child is a United Nations document.

It's in the United Nations convention, and there are 42 rights.

Now, each one of those rights is called an article.

Now it's a legally binding agreement that countries sign up to and the United Kingdom has signed up to being part of the United Nations Convention of the Rights of the Child.

Now, there are 42 rights, but we are only today going to concentrate, I guess, on four specific rights.

And these are the four major rights that we've looked at through this series of lessons that you can look back over.

Of course, there're more than 42 rights and attached to this lesson is also a worksheet with all those 42 rights that you can have a little look through as well.

So for example, Article 12, you have the right to respect for your views as a child.

Article 17, you have the right to access information.

Article 24, you have the right to healthcare and Article 28 that you have to right to education.

And there, the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child is specific four rights the we're going to be concentrating in on today in order to allow us to take part in our deliberative debate speech.

But in order to do that, we've got to ask ourselves this question, what is a deliberative debate? Now a debate is difficult via a video lesson, isn't it? Because normally you'd be working as a group and debating with other people, and we can't necessarily do that today, but we can learn the skills in order to be able to prepare ourselves for deliberative debate.

Now, a deliberative debate, or what is it? Deliberation, is a careful consideration of a topic and discussing a wide range of viewpoints that people hold about issues.

And in some nations like Ireland, deliberation is used as a democratic process.

They use something called citizens assemblies, or sometimes they're called citizens juries to look at lots and lots of different issues for example, recently they had a citizens of same sex marriage for example, and it brings citizens together to debate and discuss a wide range of informed viewpoints and often brings in experts to help as well.

And involves citizens exploring controversial issues, like some of those in Ireland that I've just talked about, and hearing evidence from different experts and coming to an informed view about how to tackle them.

Now, the important part of a deliberative debate is it's about an informed view here.

We are not simply just talking about someone's opinion, that has no grounding in anything, we're talking about having an opinion, because we want you to have an opinion, but it's about having an informed opinion about things.

And in order to have an informed opinion about things, we have to do lots of research, we have to understand it really, really deeply and that's what we've been trying to do over the last series of lessons.

And you can have a little look back over the series of lessons about this to inform yourself even more.

Now, in order to be thinking a little bit more deeply about a deliberative debate, I'm going to ask you to consider as part of our first task, what makes a speech? And I'm going to show you a speech from someone called Malala Yousafzai, someone that we've looked at a little bit in our lesson on the right to an education in the United Kingdom and around the world.

And I asked you to think about what makes this speech by Malala an informed and persuasive speech.

And I'm going to ask that you get your hands and that you draw around your thumb and fingers, yeah.

So you draw around them on a sheet of paper.

And I'd like you to write down five things that make this a persuasive speech.

And you could consider things like content, structure, use of tone and maybe evidence as well.

And I'd like you to put a positive in each finger and thumb here.

It has to draw around your hands and I'd like to write down five things that make this a persuasive speech.

Now, I'm going to introduce you to this speech by Malala Yousafzai.

And I'm only going to show you a small clip of it.

It is a number of years ago now when Malala spoke in front of the United Nations in New York, it was a really, really big deal.

It's a wonderful speech and it's quite informed and it's quite persuasive, but I want to know why it's informed and why it's persuasive.

What makes it so special? So let's watch the speech now.

So here I stand.

So here I stand one girl among many.

I speak, not for myself, but for those without voice can be heard.

Those who have fought for their rights.

Their right to living in peace, their right to be treated with dignity, their right to equality of opportunity, their right to be educated.

Dear friends, on the 9th of October, 2012, the Taliban shot me on the left side of my forehead.

They shot my friends too.

They thought that the bullet would silence us, but they failed.

And out of that silence came, thousands of voices.

So well done for listening to Malala's speech there.

Now her speech before the United Nations was really quite special.

And she shared at the very end of it, didn't she? That out of the silence after she was shot by the Taliban came a thousand voices.

What she meant by that was that she was targeted specifically because she and other people were campaigning for the rights of children and specifically the rights of girls to be able to access education.

It was fairly an impressive speech.

Now, in terms of the things that you may well have written down, no doubt you've got some absolutely wonderful answers.

And the things that I'm going to run you through now and that I spotted, are that the content was really relevant, it was informed.

It was relevant to the audience because she was speaking before the United Nations.

And it was informed by her firsthand experience.

Now, clearly you might not necessarily have that firsthand experience.

The question that we're looking at is about how have your rights been impacted by COVID-19 and each and every one of you have lived through COVID-19 so we'll have some experience that you may feel able to share.

The structure was really, really great.

It was well-structured and it was really, really easy to follow.

It was quite clear.

One of the reasons that it was clear and it was easy to follow was that she used some good tone and her tone was engaging in terms of her delivery and how she planned for it.

And it was backed up by evidence.

There was a huge amount of kind of facts, firsthand experience that she was talking about.

You can also use statistics as well to help support the case that is being made.

Now, if you use all of those things together, your speech, your deliberative debate speech will be persuasive.

Now, what I'm going to do is I'm going to run you through how you can go about making a deliberative debate speech.

Now, normally, like, I think I've said before in a classroom, if you were doing a deliberative debate, you would have a number of other people participating, and you'd probably be working as part of a team as well.

Now, clearly we can't do that at present because we're using a video lesson.

But today I'm going to run you through what we mean by deliberation again, and also this model of how you can write a deliberative debate speech.

So deliberation is a careful consideration of a topic or issue and the viewpoint that people hold about an issue.

Now, if I was going to do this, I would use this model.

And what we're really saying that this is creating real arguments.

She had real named rationale, examples, analysis and linking back.

So, number one is rationale.

And what we mean here is you need a short statement to summarise your overall argument or rationale.

Rationale basically means here you're thinking, what is your argument? Number two, you can give out examples.

You're thinking about statistics, case studies, something to help illustrate that something that supports your rationale.

So what is the argument that you are trying to make.

Now, in the speech, that Malala was making, she was using firsthand examples.

You can use other things for example, statistic studies, you can talk about a variety of other things.

You can use analysis.

Analysis is, for example, a bit more of an explanation of a viewpoint, so you're going into this in a little bit more of a detail and then you'd be linking it back.

So you're thinking about linking back to your rationale and using your closing words in order to do that.

So you're concluding your particular speech and you're linking it back to the question that was said there.

Now I'll make this full screen now so that you can pause our lesson and zoom into it if you want a closer look.

But for those that have done that, I will move us on, because one of the big things in writing a deliberative debate speech was actually having some evidence really.

And in order to have some evidence, you need to have taken part in our previous lessons.

Alternatively, you need to listen really intently as we are going to be summarising those previous lessons in order to bring about and create our own deliberative classroom discussion and debate.

So, we are going to be preparing arguments to help us make our speech on how has COVID-19 affected children's rights.

Now, in order to do that, my suggestion to you is that you need a sheet of paper.

You may well want two sheets of paper that you can stick together or put side by side because the spider diagram that I'm going to introduce you to now, could be quite big.

So, we are going to prepare our arguments using a mind map.

Now, in the middle of the mind map, you should have something that is just like the thing in green on your screen now, that says, how has COVID-19 affected our rights? Because that is the deliberative debate topic that we're looking at.

Now under it, what you'll notice is that there is a key, and I'm going to make reference to this in a second.

I would add this to your spider diagram.

The key would be that children's rights have been impacted in yellow or whatever colour you want.

So things that suggest that children's rights have been somehow impacted due to COVID-19.

And the last one is in violet or lilac as a colour, and it says that children's rights have not been impacted.

Now, the three different areas, so one, two and three, so the three different areas that we are going to look at and that we've studied over the course of these lessons in terms of children's rights and COVID-19 as a pandemic and how that may well have impacted the right to an education.

That's number one.

Number two is the right to information.

And number three is the right to health.

So, add those to your mind map now.

What I will do is I'll make this much bigger so that you can zoom into it and you can make sure you've got that information on your own personal mind map.

Now, once you've done that I'll move us on to the first kind of spoke on our mind map, and the first spoke is about the right to education.

And I'm going to run you through it now.

So Article 28 of the UN CRC so the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child, says that children have a right to education.

Now, the UK, the United Kingdom has signed up to the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child and it has a duty to ensure that this right is matched.

So it's got a legal responsibility, a legal duty to make sure that young people get their right to education.

Now, firstly, we'll have a little look at the things in lilac and the things in lilac are saying that children's rights haven't been impacted.

Now in April, the Sutton Trust reported that pupils that are independent or fee paying schools were twice as likely to attend online lessons every day.

So if you are in an independent and fee paying school sometimes referred to as a private school, then you're probably not likely to have had your right to education impacted that much.

Also, another argument that says that children's rights haven't been impacted is that the government have distributed and funded thousands of laptops to help children and particularly disadvantaged children who may will have had an issue in terms of a device at home and maybe broadband access as well.

However, in yellow, there are also a number of arguments that say that children's rights have been impacted.

For example, there's been a divide between some children who have ICT equipment, whilst others do not.

And this is really talking about, that certain trust research really.

Actually, if young people in private schools, in fee paying schools have had an access to that, what about young people who might not necessarily have access to that much money in their family.

Has there been a divide between those children who can have access to IT equipment and access things like Oak and those young people who don't.

And secondly, that COVID-19 has meant that many children have missed out on their normal lessons.

Which means that, many schools have been closed or be open on a reduced kind of service for key worker children so children of the parents who may be key workers working in NHS or distribution of food, that type of stuff, and also particularly vulnerable kids' schools have stayed open for those.

Now, I will make this much bigger on your screen now.

Feel free to pause the video and add this information to your mind map.

The reason we're doing this is this helps us when we are constructing our deliberative debate speech.

Now, the second thing that we are going to look at is about the right to health.

Now the right to health is really about Article 24.

And that says that you have the right to healthcare information to help you stay healthy and that rich countries should help poor countries to do this.

Now, the things that are in the lilac colour that suggests that children's rights have not been impacted.

In the UK, we have access to the National Health Service, the NHS and healthcare is free of charge and it's funded through taxation.

And also that the BBC reported that the government was testing more than 200,000 people for COVID-19 each day, by the end of May, 2020.

So an awful lot of people were getting healthcare during this period.

However, our arguments in yellow that suggests that young people, that children's rights have been impacted, that during COVID-19, some regular NHS services have been difficult to access.

Many non urgent operations have been cancelled for children.

So that means that if you're a child that maybe is in need of an operation, but it's not urgent, then your right to healthcare may well have been impacted temporarily during COVID-19.

And also, and some of this is on social media, but not all of it, false information about COVID-19 has been circulating, which means that some people may have made unsafe choices about their own health.

Now I'm going to make this bigger now so that you can pause the class and you can add this to your own spider diagram.

Well done for doing that and adding this to your own spider diagram.

Remember, you can pause this at any point to add the information to your spider diagram, to your mind map.

And number three, so the third thing is about the right to information.

Now, Article 17 says that you have the right to access information.

And the accurate and reliable information are very important, during a pandemic as they help children to make healthy and safe choices.

And we also know that there's been a rise in the use of social media as a source of information.

Now we'll just look at the ones in the lilac colour that say that children's rights have not been impacted.

Now, if I'm going to look at those folks, I would say that, well, the government has posted information about COVID-19 to every family during the lockdown.

So that's an argument suggesting that people do know about COVID-19.

The government has tried its best, it's posted that information out to families.

And specialist children's media has been available during the pandemic.

So things like Newsround to help explain the new stories and give young people access to the right information that is accurate during this period.

However, arguments in yellow that suggest that young people, that children haven't necessarily had their right to information that's accurate and reliable, and that their rights have been impacted, is that it's not easy to get a balanced viewpoint on social media because the algorithms that social media platforms and search engines used.

So if young people or children are only getting their information from social media, actually the algorithms that social media firms use and the search engines use are likely to give you more of what you already know about and not necessarily give you authored viewpoints, which might be really important when you're trying to weigh up the evidence during a global pandemic about kind of the risks to you and your family and your community.

And also, despite us having access to specialist children's media, mainstream, adult folk, just media, like BBC News, Sky News can sometimes be difficult for children to access, making stories like COVID-19 quite difficult to follow for many young people, albeit, some young people will be able to access those and that will be fine for them.

So I'll make this bigger now.

Feel free to pause our lesson and zoom into it to add these points to your own mind map.

Remember this will help you in terms of your construction of your speech and it'll show.

So, well done for doing that and making your mind map.

Now that leaves us to enter the next stage of our lesson, which is really about crafting your own deliberative debate speech and our deliberative debate speech is on this topic, how has COVID-19 affected our rights? And this is where you're going to use your mind map and perhaps the knowledge that you've developed over the last few lessons in order to be able to answer this question in a deliberative debate style speech.

Now, normally in a classroom, like I think I've already said, you'd have many more people to debate with and you'd be working as a part of a team to craft this speech, but today, that isn't possible, but you may well choose to present it to perhaps a member of your family or a friend via video link.

It is entirely up to you.

Now, how are we going to go about doing this? Let's go back to this real way of doing it, this rationale example analysis and link back.

And I will make this a little bit bigger now so that you can pause the class and zoom into it.

If you want to make a note of any of the sentence starters, remember that you can return to this spot at any point during our lesson today.

So, the first thing that you need to do is you need a rationale and your rationale, the sentence starters that I would use here will be that COVID-19 has or has not impacted our rights because.

So here you've got to really think about, am I going to say that COVID-19 has impacted children's rights or has not.

You got to actually make your argument.

And you've got to really think about basing that in some thinking and your thinking would be about the UN Convention of the Rights of the Child, the UN CRC.

So which article says whatever.

So use the UN CRC to help you make your case.

Then you're thinking about your examples.

So what examples are you going to be using? Now, when we watch Malala speech that campaigner for children's rights to education, she had firsthand examples to use.

You might have firsthand examples to use from your own experience, but you might choose to use some of the knowledge and information on the mind map that we created.

So you might choose to use something like this for the examples, that during COVID-19 the reality for many children is or was.

So what was the reality for many young people.

A fact that supports this is.

So look back over your mind map what fact supports that and is there any data that suggests it as well? We talked about some data from the Sutton Trust, various other data.

Can you put it in there to help make your argument? The next thing is about analysis.

So number three is about the analysis.

So we're here, we're really thinking about going further and more deeper with your explanation, so this means that.

So try and expand on a sentence that you previously written and use a sentence starter like, this means that.

And then lastly, you're going to link back.

This is where you're thinking about to recap my argument is.

You might choose to use, or to conclude my speech COVID-19 has or has not impacted our rights because.

you're going to link it back to the original question and the point that you're trying to make.

Now once again, I'll make this much bigger on your screen.

Feel free to pause the lesson now, to jot down and make a note of which starter sentences you might choose to use.

Remember, you might choose not to use these starter sentences at all, but use them as inspiration to help you.

That's entirely okay as well.

Now, what I'm going to do is I'm going to introduce you to someone called Jake.

Now in our previous lessons, we have used someone called Zach and Zach's been brought into our lessons.

Now, Jake is one of Zach's friends.

And in a short while, Jake is going to read out his deliberative debate speech.

And this is a really good opportunity for you to read and hear and see how a speech is actually made on these sorts of lines answering our specific question about how has COVID-19 impacted children's rights.

So it may give you even more inspiration to help you.

So let's listen to Jake now.

COVID-19 has impacted on our rights because many children have missed out on their normal lessons.

Article 28, of the UN CRC, says that children have the right to education.

During COVID-19, the reality for many children was that some could get easy access to online lessons because they had equipment like laptops at home, whilst others struggled.

A fact that supports this is that in April, 2020, the Sutton Trust reported that independent fee paying schools were twice as likely to attend online lessons every day than those in other schools.

This means that if you are poorer, it's been much more difficult to get your right to education, despite the government distributing thousands of laptops to the children who need them.

To conclude my speech, COVID-19 has impacted on our rights because of the closure of schools to most students and the difficulty some children are faced accessing online lessons.

Thank you very much there Jake for sharing your amazing deliberative debate speech.

Now that will really help people in constructing their own deliberative debate speech, which is what we're going to be doing now.

Now in terms of making your own deliberative debate speech, I'd like you to use the starter sentences and the example that Jake provided to help you craft your own deliberative debate speech.

Remember that you can also refer back to your mind map and perhaps also the knowledge that you may well have developed in previous lessons if you've taken part in those as well.

Now, good luck with this.

And hopefully we'll have some amazing examples in a short while.

So well done there for constructing your own deliberative debate speech, using your mind map that you've constructed using those starters sentences, using Jake's example to help you craft an amazing deliberative debate speech.

Now, what you can choose to do now is you might choose to present your speech to a family member or perhaps a friend using a video link.

Now, if you're going to do that, one of the things that you might choose to ask them, once you've performed your speech are these particular questions.

You might want to ask them how well you did.

And you could use this checklist to ask a friend or family member to give you some feedback about your own speech.

So, how was the content? Was it relevant, was it informed? What was the structure like? Was it well-structured and was it easy to follow? What was the use of tone like? Was it engaging? And what evidence was used? Did you use facts and statistics to help support the case that was being made? And I'll put this full screen on your screen so that you can pause the class now, and you can zoom into this and use this to help perhaps a friend or family give you some feedback about your own particular speech.

Now, today's lesson that has involved us doing a variety of different things.

It has focused in on a deliberative debate, and we've really been thinking about how has COVID-19 affected our rights.

In order to do that, we've recapped the Convention on the Rights of the Child.

And we led our lesson into thinking very much about what makes a deliberative debate.

So we're thinking about what was a deliberative debate.

And in order to construct our speech, in order to craft our speech and deliberative debate speech, we had to bring together all the different arguments that we were going to use through a mind map and we used the right to education, the right to reliable information and we also used the right to health there.

And the last thing that we did was that we practised making our own persuasive speech and some of you may well perform this in front of a family member or friend and perhaps got some feedback as well.

Now, it's been absolutely wonderful being your citizenship teacher for this unit of work and I hope you have enjoyed our series of lessons on how has COVID-19 impacted our rights.

Now thank you very much and I hope you have a good day.

Bye-bye.