Lesson video

Hello, and welcome to our lesson today.

My name is Mr. Miskell and I'll be your citizenship teacher for today's lesson, which is the final lesson as part of a wider unit of work about how does local democracy work.

Now what, we're going to be focusing in on with our learning today is one particular aspect of that, which is how can young people be involved in local decision making.

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

Firstly, you need to make sure that you've got a pen or, a pen or pencil by your side, and you need to make sure that you've got a piece of paper so that you can also take part in our activities and tasks that we're going to be doing together.

You also need to make sure that you've got a quiet space so that you can participate without any distraction.

Now, if you've not got any of those things sorted, you do need to pause the class now and restart it when you have got them sorted, but let's get going with our learning today.

Now this is our agenda.

So what we're going to be studying together.

Now, firstly, what we're going to do is we're going to try and introduce Zac who would be using through outside work, I'm going to try and set the scene.

And the scene is about you advising Zac.

And in order to do that, we're going to have a bit of an exercise where you're going to map the issues in an area.

And you're going to look at an illustration of Zac's area and you're going to think about problems or issues in Zach's particular area.

Now that will lead us on to what tools and techniques to make a difference and campaigns, what tools and techniques can Ac use in his area to deal with the issues that have been identified in the previous tasks that you've looked at.

But also we can then apply that to our own active citizenship projects as well.

And that then leads us onto one particular type of tool and technique, which is about petitions.

And we're going to look at case study of a petition and the petition is about South end dog family beaches to make South ends beaches, even more dog family.

And lastly, it's going to be about deciding an issue that matters to you and taking some citizenship action as well, if that's something that you would like to do to choosing an issue in your area that you would like to see improved and taking some citizenship action as well.

Now we're going to be doing a little bit of advising Ac.

Now Ac is an active citizen who is a very passionate about wanting to create change in his neighbourhood.

He needs your advice about what issues to campaign on and raise with local decision makers, as well as the techniques and tools that he could use to make his voice heard.

This planning is an important part of the ACTive Citizenship Learning Cycle, which we're going to look into more detail in a second.

Now active citizenship is a key part of citizenship as a subject.

This is the active citizenship learning style.

Now it's an active citizenship learning cycle and this is a cycle of seven steps to plan do and reflect on citizenship action.

And the first step is to get planning.

The second step is to take some action and the third step is to measure your impact.

Now, what we're going to focus in on today is that getting planning aspect of it and also the taking action part of it as well.

And I'll make this much bigger on your screen now so that you can look at it in much more detail as well.

Now that's going to lead us on to a task and this is task one where you're going to be advising Ac issues and problems in his neighbourhood.

And what I'd like you to do is look at the illustration of Zach's neighbourhood.

Now this is going to be appearing on your screen in a short while, and it's also attached as part of the worksheet for this lesson.

I want you to write a list or circle the different issues or problems that you see, and you should think about problems that may impact people's lives in a negative way issues that may be bad for the environment, things that could potentially annoy residents or anything that you think might be unfair.

So your job is to look at the illustration and write down a list of issues or problems that you see or to circle them as well, if you do have that in front of you.

So I'll make this much bigger on your screen so that you can pause now and look at this in much more detail.

Now this is a copy of the illustration that I would like you to focus in on.

I'd like you to find issues and problems in Zach's areas and note them down, write them down on a sheet in front of you or alternatively, you can circle them if you're using the sheet that the worksheet attached to this particular lesson.

So look at it really closely at the different problems or issues in sacks area.

Now please complete this task and pause the video.

Once you complete the task, you need to restart once you have finished it.

So there are a variety of different issues that you could have identified.

Now, if you don't have some of these issues, then you can add them to your list or circle your own picture.

And number one is about pollution and you can see that there's a lot of cars and traffic and that's creating a lot of pollution, which obviously problem for people's health and the environment.

Number two, what's contributing to that pollution is traffic congestion, the lines of traffic there on that road, slowing people down from getting to the A to be from B from side of Zach's talent to the other.

And that's leading to number three, which is about under you cycling lanes.

People for some reason are choosing not to use the cycle lanes.

Now there is a bit of a hill there, so it might be a little bit of a problem, but might it also be because the traffic and the pollution and people perhaps not wanting to use the cycle lanes.

Number four is about rubbish in the playground.

And that's a particular issue.

Isn't that big as it makes the playground of a nice place for young people to play out.

And therefore they're less likely to exercise, which might cause them various different health problems as well, mindset.

Number five is about antisocial behaviour.

And you can see that there's someone there kicking something around in a quite antisocial fashion that makes people less likely to want to use that town centre or district shopping centre that exists in Zach's area.

Number six is fly tipping.

That's where people drop things from trips their cars or lorries, and then just leave it somewhere.

Instead of taking it to, tap into a tip or recycling centre, it's actually illegal, but also it makes the environment really unpleasant doesn't it.

It makes people less likely to want to shop in the kind of shops there, which we can see as number seven is about closed down shops.

It's an issue, Because there's nowhere for people to shop, but it's also an issue because there's no, there's a lack of work in an area because lots of people gain employment through working in shops.

It might make it so that people don't want to come down to that area because all the buildings are boarded up.

And number eight is about graffiti.

Now we know that some graffiti can be legal and absolutely lovely if the owner of a property or premises agrees that a, that wall or the kind of buildings should have some wonderful graffiti on it, but it looks like this graffiti has been done in an illegal fashion without the permission of the owner of the building or the billboard, then it kind of guns down the general feel of the town.

Does it makes it less likely that people are going to go out there.

Maybe they might go to out of town, shopping centres causing more traffic congestion and those sorts of things.

Now you can add any of these eight different points to, your own diagram or your own list of different issues or problems in Zach's area there.

Now, what I'd like us to do is using this information that we've gathered about Zac's area.

I'd like you to help Zac prioritise issues and problems in Zach's neighbourhood.

And what you're going to do is you're going to create a diamond nine.

A diamond nine can be a very useful tool, to help prioritise issues and make decisions.

And I want you to help Ac to decide which other most important issues in his neighbourhood to focus off by creating your own diamond nine.

Now remember that if you're doing a diamond nine, then you're basically putting the issues at the very top that you think are the most important, the most pressing issues.

And then you're putting, as you progressively go down, you're putting the least important issues down that as well, just a tool to help Zack and you prioritise issues.

And it's really helpful.

As a, as a technique, you should.

Number one, use the issues you identified in task one.

So, fly tipping, it might be boarded up shops or graffiti or traffic congestion, you know, and social behaviour, any of those things.

Number two, draw a diamond nine and place the most important issues at the top and the least important issues at the bottom.

So which one would you write in as the top issue at number one, which one would you write in as the least important issue to focus on, to create some change, to do something about at the bottom? And then obviously if it's a progressively from the very bottom, from the least important, works up to the most important at the very top there.

So now is the time for you to pause the video, to complete your task.

What you should do is you should restart once you have finished good luck with that task.

Now that is a really useful tool for you to be using for your own active citizenship project, but it will certainly help Ac in prioritising what issues are important in his area.

So as a bit of feedback to this now, which is your problem, did you identify as being the most important in Zach's neighbourhoods, quite like you to maybe shout that out now, what, which issue did you identify at the very top of the very top of your diamond? Now it's most important.

You can use a similar process to consider what issues and problems need attention in your own neighbourhood as part of your own active citizenship campaign.

Now, this will be useful later on in the lesson where we're doing our own active citizenship as well.

Now this again is Ac and Ac saying something to us Now Ac says, "Now that I decided on the most important issue or problem in my neighbourhood, I'm ready to consider it and plan what type of action might be appropriate to help create change." Now an action is something that we're going to be talking about in a second, is something that is designed, to try to raise public awareness or influence key decision makers like local counsellors.

And I'd like us to use the information that we've just kind of got that to try and answer this true or false.

Now in your mind, do you think there's a very limited number of potential actions that Ac could do to raise awareness and influence key decision makers like local counsellors in his area, other a very limited number of actions that he could do to raise awareness and influence decision makers.

So if you agree, and it's very limited, it's true.

If you disagree, it's false.

I'd like to hear you chow either true or false, which one you're going for.

Now, the answer to this is actually it's false.

And the reason it's false is that there are actually a multitude of a variety of different actions that Ac could choose to use to try and raise awareness and influence key decision makers in his local area.

So if the doctors decided that graffiti is a big problem in his neighbourhood, then actually he could use a variety of different actions.

And I'm going to run you through some of these potential actions now.

So taking action campaign tools and techniques Ac could use a variety of tools and techniques to make his voice heard.

And these may well include ringing up the council and talking to the council officer or local counsellor responsible.

It could involve my writing a letter of complaint to the counsel explaining his frustration.

It could involve encouraging people to vote by launching a voter registration drive.

Like in the last lesson, it could involve speaking up as a concerned resident, at a council committee meeting.

It might involve joining up a petition to send to the council expressing residents views.

Now, what we mean by a petition is a list of names that someone would go round, maybe knocking on their neighbor's doors or using the internet to send it to people, to get their names, to say that they support a certain thing.

So supporting the council, for example, doing more about getting rid of graffiti in an area and you get someone's name yes, wants address, and maybe that telephone number, and you might get like 50 names and then you send it off to your local council to show strength of support.

You could choose to write your, to your local newspaper and get your letter published in the letters page.

You could choose to organise a local demonstration march in connection with the issue.

And what I mean by that is there's pictures.

You often see on the TV where people hold out kind of big plaque art in the app with messages off often quite witty messages about an issue that they care passionately about to try and influence decision makers, or you could choose to hold a public meeting on an issue and invite your local council as long to show, show the strength of support about the issue that you're campaigning on without the graffiti and the moving graffiti, or whether that be traffic congestion or absolutely whatever.

Now we can only focus on one issue in our lesson and the issue that we're going to focus in on to look out and practise a bit of active citizenship is to draw up a petition, to send to the council expressing residents' views.

Now, what I would like you to do with in task three is in terms of petition is to consider the pros and cons of petition.

Now, I want you to write down one pro positive about using petitions to help, to create change.

And one column, which is a negative, you might wish to consider.

Number one, how effective petitions may be in persuading decision-makers, number two, whether it will be, whether it will potentially encourage others to support Ac.

Now you don't need people, but you could choose to write this table out on a sheet of paper in front of you.

Alternatively, this table is attached as part of the worksheet for this lesson as well.

So we are here looking about one pro, which is a positive one column, which is a negative about using petitions about petitions in general.

So now is the time to pause the video to complete your task.

Now restart the video once that you have finished.

Well done, therefore for having a great go at looking at the pros and cons of petitions.

Now when I have to do this with students in my own class, they tell me, okay, at mission high school, one of the pros is that because we live in a democracy, local counsellors are more likely to listen to issues raised that have wide public support.

A large number of signatures from residents shows that people care about the issue and is more powerful.

So that's a pro of a petition, a positive of a con.

However, they often tell me that petitions can be easily ignored by decision makers once they're handed in, whereas demonstrations or marches on an issue and noisy and get lots of media attention.

Now that's an example of a pro and a con of a petition that you can pause the lesson now, and you can jot down some of those pros and cons.

If you want to add to your answer and make it even stronger as well.

Now that leads us into task number four, which is using the skills and knowledge that we have learned to do this thing here.

This is our taking citizenship action parts of the lesson, where you are going to be deciding on an issue or problem that you would like to see changed in your area.

And you might want to consider these things.

So think back to the illustration of Zach's neighbourhood and the problems that you prioritised intact to for inspiration showing the diamond nine.

And are there any similar issues that you feel passionately about your village town, city, or County? If you're stuck, feel free to kind of pause the video now.

And if they're available, ask family, friends, or neighbours for their own ideas as well, because talking to other people and getting ideas is a good thing.

Now on the, when we did the activity with Ac, we looked at graffiti, we looked at traffic congestion and social behaviour flights.

It could be any of those issues, also be something that's specific to your own area as well.

Now, is the time to pause the video to complete your task and you need to restart it once you are finished.

Now we are looking at petitions, and were looking at how petitions can work, the pros and cons of using that.

Ultimately, you're going to create your own petition if you would like.

And we're going to look at a case to the example of a petition, and this is a petition to make something, beat South ends, beaches, dog, family, all year round.

Now, once you've decided on your issue or problem in your neighbourhood, it's time to take some action.

You could use any of the tools and techniques that are mentioned in task three, but we're going to concentrate on creating a petition to help make our own petition.

We're going to use an example from South end.

And so the example we're going to use is from South end.

Now this is a case study petition, and you can see the lout of the petition at the bottom of your screen.

Now, the headlines for the petition that people will see is it's made South ends beaches, dog family, all year round the petition tax, as we are a town of animal lovers, and aren't pets just as much part of our family as anyone else, but on the rules set by the local council dogs have banned from all the South ends beaches between may the first and September the 30th.

The call to action is we the undersigned call on South end council to relax the current summer ban and permit dogs on parts of the beach.

Now there's a word there that you might struggle with.

It's permit.

Permit means allow.

Now you'll notice that underneath it, that is the petition kind of tabled.

Normally it would have a significant number of rows in it as well.

So you can add, you know, 20, 30, 40, 50 different names and signatures of people we'd have someone's name and you'd have someone's address and signature.

Now, nowadays which of these many of these petitions that are actually done online because often it is a way, a great way of sharing it amongst your community or your town or the wider world and getting more support.

But the petition that you can see here is a paper based petition.

Some people might be confused about what we mean by a signature.

Signatures are just kind of squiggly netted squiggly version of your name.

That's usually consistent from one time or the other that you actually do that as well.

Now, what I'd like you to do is I'd like you to pause the video to complete your task and task number five is what should they petition include? Don't I get used to case study example to help answer number one, what key elements should a partition con contain? So what should it contain? Number two, are there any phrases that used in the petition that you could use yourself when creating your own petition? Now you need to press play and resume once you've finished the task.

So I'm going to give it a little bit of feedback.

Now, petition should include these things as a bare minimum.

They need a headline, which is usually quite catchy, like make South ends beaches, dog family, all year round, and the example they petitioned tax so that people understand what you're saying.

So this is the way you explain the issue or problem and say, why it should be changed.

It needs a call to action, which includes the phase.

And you've got to make sure you have a phase like this.

We the undersigned and explain who the petition is, targets it's I E South end foreign counsel, as well as what the demand is.

I E but lacks the covenant some about and permit dogs on parts of the beach.

It needs to have a headline petitioned, text, a call to action as well.

And ideally it needs to make sure that it has for phase, like read the undefined.

And remember in the petition, you had kind of Rose for people to add their names.

That's what we mean.

We, the undersigned, it's not just one individual.

It's two, three, four, five, six, 60, 70, 100, 1000 different people who also support your cause, whatever that is, whatever the kind of demand is that you're making there, Now, the next thing is touch six.

And I would like you to make your own petition.

Now using the case study example, as a guide, I'd like to make your own petition on an issue or problem in your own area.

Now using the points from the writing frame below to help you.

So you've got to make sure that you've got a headline.

This is why you write a catchy headline that summarises the issue or problem.

You need to make sure you've got petitioned text.

And this has to make sure that it's got an, you explain the issue and problem in your own area and say why it should be changed.

You need to make sure that you've got call to action, including the fakes, we, the undersigned, and explain who the petition is targeted.

IE the decision makers like local counsel or counsellors, as well as what the demand is.

And that demand of course might be to kind of remove graffiti.

It might be to stop flight tipping.

It could be anything.

You also need to make sure that you've got space for people to sign, including the name, address, and signature.

And if you're confused about the layout of your petition, you can rewind our lesson and look at the example, petition, there that's cost space for people to sign.

Now is the time to pause the video to complete your task, and you should restart the lesson once that you have finished.

Now well done for doing that particular task them and creating your own petition.

I'd like you to do a little bit of self assessment feedback.

This table is included as part of the worksheet that's attached to this lesson.

Alternatively, if you're not using that, you could simply draw out your own self assessment feedback table.

So it does a petition include yes or no tick off cross, a catchy headline.

Does it include tax that explains the issue and says why it should be changed? Does it include a call to action, including the face we, bee undersigned, does it include a space for people to sign and show that support? Now, if it doesn't include any of those things, that's a great opportunity to go back and add them into your petition to make your petition even stronger, make it an even better citizenship action as well.

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

We started out by setting the scene and the scene was you advising Zach about various different problems in his area and different actions that he could take.

And that involved us with a little bit of an exercise, and it was about mapping issues in Zach's area.

So what were the issues and problems in Zach's area? And that led us on to considering what are the different tools and techniques to make a difference in campaign, we focused in, on one of those particular tools and techniques, which is about case study petitions.

And that was about South ends dog, family beaches.

And then of course we decided on an issue.

And you decided on an issue that matters to you, and you took some citizenship action.

Remember, you can actually do something with your petition and with the permission of your parents and carers, you can actually send off your petition with names on it, to decision makers in your area to try and make a difference on your chosen issue.

Now, today's lesson has been part of a series of work about how does local democracy work, and it is involved in six different lessons.

The first lesson was how is local government different to central government.

The second lesson was what to do local councils do.

The third lesson was what is the role of a local counsellor? The fourth lesson was how the local elections work, the fifth lesson, was why is registering to vote so important? And finally, the lesson that we've been doing today and the sixth lesson is how can young people be involved in local decision making as well.

Now it has been an utter joy to be your citizenship teacher throughout this lesson.

And this part of this unit work.

I know that you produce some absolutely wonderful work and you can share your work with national.

And if you'd like to please ask your parents or carer to share your work on Twitter by tagging @Oak National and using #Learn with Oak, the materials from today's lesson, been produced by the association for citizenship teaching.

Now, this is just a reminder before you finish our lesson today, you need to please make sure that you complete the exit quiz as well.

So thank you very much for participating in this lesson and this unit of work as well.

It has been absolutely wonderful to be your citizenship teacher.

And I hope you have a great day.

Bye bye.

Bye.