Lesson video

Hi, I'm Mr. Humphrys.

Welcome to lesson one of six.

This unit we'll explore the nature of citizenship and the different skills you will learn whilst you study the subject.

For today's lesson, you're going to need some paper, a pen, and a quiet place to study.

So if you don't have those, pause the video now to go and grab some.

In today's lesson, we'll cover three things.

We are going to look at what kind of things you will study within citizenship.

Now, you may have studied citizenship in primary school, or you may have not have done.

You may have done bits, kind of some bits of citizenship, kind of within other subjects.

But citizenship kind of is a subject in its own right.

So we're going to look at kind of what kind of topics you'll explore.

Secondly, we will look at how we make social change happen.

So kind of citizenship's really important, not only because it teaches you lots of academic things, but also because it's helping people to change things for the better in society.

And thirdly, we are going to develop our skills at using sources and equip ourselves with some basic knowledge of UK society.

So what will you study in citizenship? Task one will help you explore this question a little bit more.

You are going to be presented with a series of images.

And what I would like you to do is pause the video, look at the images, and make a list of all the things you think that citizenship entails.

Please pause the video now.

Okay, so hopefully when you did that task, you got some of these ideas.

You may have got politics.

So you're going to look at the different people involved in politics, the different procedures involved in politics, the different political parties.

You are going to look at how we vote and kind of how elections work.

So how do we elect kind of those in power to represent kind of our own views.

You're going to look at the law and the justice system.

So how the laws work, how the justice system works.

So things like the police and the courts, on the different types of law.

You're going to look at the economy and money.

So what happens when we send money? How do we ensure we have enough money to kind of pay for things in the country? How do we ensure that people in society have enough money? We're kind of going to look at the role and the power of the media and the press.

So the media, I'm sure, is something you all use and access every day.

Kind of how important is it in society today? We are going to look at how the UK is related to the wider world.

So kind of how the UK has a role in international affairs.

So now you know some of the key concepts and ideas you'll study in citizenship.

We are going to move on to the next part of the lesson.

And the next part of the lesson is going to look at this idea of social change.

What do you think social change means? Have a go at kind of saying some ideas to the screen.

Now, I'm sure you got some ideas about making a difference, changing things from one thing to another.

And it's all about genuinely making society a better place.

Now, people who make change or change makers use a number of different ways to do this.

And your next task is going to give you a little introduction to these.

And what I'm going to ask you to do is match some key words to some definitions.

Now you can do this any way you want, you can do it as a simple table, you can do it as a list, you can do it as a mind-map, it's completely up to you.

So, you may want to pause this video now and have a go at this task.

So, let's have a look and see what answers you've got.

You might want to get different coloured pen to make some corrections or to do some ticks to highlight all the ones you got correct.

So number one, a petition.

So, a petition is where we gather signatures to show support for a cause.

And we can do this on paper or electronically.

Now I'm sure you can think of some various different plus and minus points for paper versus electronic.

And the second one is engaging with a politician.

So a politician is someone who is elected to represent you either on a local level or a national level.

Now your local representative is called a councillor and your national representative is called a MP.

Both do slightly different things and both focus on slightly different issues.

Over the course of your study in citizenship, you will find out who does what and kind of why they do it.

Our third one is volunteering.

So giving up your time freely to make a change.

So, you know, you might give up a time to go and do a litter pick or you might give up some time to go and help with the shopping for an elderly neighbour, okay? So you given up your time freely.

The next one is joining a pressure group, okay.

So a pressure is it's a little bit more organised and it's usually run by an organisation which focuses on a specific issue and it wants to overcome that issue.

And pressure groups usually use all these different methods we're talking about here to make a change.

So a pressure group might organise, for example, a petition on a particular issue.

The next one, you might join a demonstration.

So you might have seen lots of demonstrations kind of going on around the world.

And these are basically where people take to the street and they show their support for a specific cause.

And the final one is ethical purchasing, okay.

So if you're really passionate about a particular issue, then you may want to make sure you buy things what support, like for example, like fair trade chocolate, fair trade tea or coffee, supports workers fairly so they get a good wage for their work.

So, now you know some methods, we are now going to kind of think about which one do you think is best? And I'm going to have a little read through a scenario and come to a judgement.

So, Zach and Jake are two students at a local secondary school, they want to make a change within that school community regarding the food served at lunchtime.

After discussing all the different methods, so of the different methods kind of we just looked at, they decide to either gather signatures for a petition and give them to their teacher or write a letter to their local councillor.

Now, what I would like you to do is have a think about if you were in that situation, which method do you think you'd use? And now I want you to give a reason to explain why you think you would use that method.

So to justify your answer.

And all you need to do is write me a mini paragraph to explain your reason.

And you're going to want to pause the video now to do that.

Okay, so when I thought about this, a method I thought would be best would be the gathering signatures for a petition, okay? And the reason for that, so my justification, is because school lunches is something that can be dealt with inside the school by the head teacher.

And if you managed to get a lot of signatures, then it shows that lots of people support the issue and your head teacher will, you know, consider the case more seriously.

I didn't think the councillor would be the best because, in this situation, they might not be able to do anything to help, okay? Now this is just my answer.

You might have got a really good reason for picking the councillor, or maybe you also went with the petition.

So our final task for our lesson is going to have a little look and introduce you to the idea of sources, okay.

Now source is just something that you can get some information from.

And sources are really useful in citizenship as we can use them to kind of further our knowledge of society.

Now to do this, we are going to do a little quiz.

And kind of what I have to do is kind of look at the source and pick the correct answer.

And you can either write out the answer in full or you can just write the letter, it's up to you.

So, question number one is have a look at this graph here.

Okay, and using the graph, which of the following is the estimated UK population for 2019, okay? Is it A, B, or C? Okay, next question.

Again, we've got another graph but this time it's a slightly different graph.

Using the graph, which of the following is the largest religion in the UK? A, B, or C? Question number three, a third graph.

Looking at the graph, which term best describes the UK's ethnic makeup, okay? So ethnicity, a group of people who share some kind of social characteristics.

So we've got soloethnic, so, you know, one ethnic or one ethnicity.

Or multiethnic, meaning many ethnicities.

A or B.

And the final question of this little quiz is a question for which political party won the most seats in 2019 general election, okay? So have a look at the graph above and see which is biggest A, B, or C? And again, you might want to get some, you might want to get a colour to have a, you know, correction of or tick your answers in this feedback.

So, question number one was B, 64 million.

Question number two was A, Christianity.

Question number three was B, multiethnic.

So we live in a country with lots of different ethnicities.

And question number four was C, the Conservatives.

The Conservatives are the current party in power and they hold a majority.

So, that brings our lesson to an end for today.

Hopefully, if you completed all the different activities, you can now do the following things.

You can give some examples of the different topics and issues you will study in citizenship.

You were able to define the different ways people can create social change.

And you'll be able to kind of tell someone else kind of some facts about UK society.

I hope you've enjoyed the lesson and I hope you've learned some new things.

Please do join us again for our next introductory lesson.

You may want to check with your teacher about what topic or lesson that they would like you to do.

And don't forget to complete the exit quiz, so you can have a look and kind of assess all the new knowledge you have learned today.

Thank you very much-.