Hi, I'm Mrs. Allchin, and I'm going to be taking you through this citizenship lesson today.

I'm going to give you all the information that you need to be successful, and I'm also going to pause and tell you when to complete a check for understanding or a task.

I Hope you enjoy the lesson.

This lesson is called "How Can We Ensure Effective Safeguarding?" and it comes from the unit of lessons, "How Can I Be a Changemaker in my Community?" By the end of this lesson, you'll understand how to keep yourself and others safe whilst carrying out your active citizenship project.

Before we start this lesson, because we're talking about safeguarding, let's just go over some ground rules.

So we need to make sure that we're listening to others.

It's okay to disagree with each other, but we should listen properly before making assumptions or deciding how to respond.

When disagreeing, challenge a statement, not the person.

We need to respect privacy.

We can discuss examples, but do not use names or descriptions that identify anyone including ourselves.

No judgement.

We can explore beliefs and misunderstandings about a topic without fear of being judged.

And choose level of participation.

Everyone has a right to choose not to answer a question or join discussion.

We never put anyone on the spot.

So our key words for today's lesson are "effectively," which is getting the results you want in a way that works well, "safeguarding," which is a measure taken to protect someone or something or to prevent something undesirable, and "distressing," causing a feeling of worry, sadness, or pain that makes someone feel upset or uncomfortable.

Our lesson outline for how can we ensure effective safeguarding is we're going to look at how can we safeguard ourselves and then we're going to have a look at how can we safeguard others.

So let's start by thinking about how can we safeguard ourselves.

So Lucas is asking, "What does safeguarding mean?" Pause and have a go and see if you can answer this for yourselves.

Safeguarding means to keep you safe, ultimately, and this requires making sure that everyone, especially children and young people, are safe from harm.

It also involves adults making sure that you are protected, your concerns are listened to, and your environment, both in real life and online, is safe.

So Lucas is asking, what has safeguarding got to do with active citizenship? So why are we learning now a lesson about safeguarding at the same time that we're completing active citizenship? Pause and have a think.

So within active citizenship, pupils engage in real life activities which will involve aspects of campaigning such as carrying out research and speaking to a range of people.

It is therefore important to consider wellbeing, ensuring that nothing you are doing is either unsafe or emotionally distressing.

Activities also need to be considered to ensure that they are age-appropriate and safe.

So Lucas is asking, "How can I safeguard myself when carrying out research?" What do you think? So active citizenship may involve carrying out two types of research, primary research, which is a research that you'll design and carry out yourself, so this could be conducting surveys, observing people or places or meeting with a focus group, and secondary research, which is looking at research that's already existing.

So information which has been published by someone else.

So for example, newspaper reports, website information, and documentaries.

So let's have a think about actually and look at how when you are carrying out this type of research, how you can make sure that you're safeguarding yourself.

So when carrying out primary research, that's a research that you carry out yourself, you can safeguard yourself by ensuring you are not observing situations that could be dangerous, ensuring you are not exposing themselves to harmful information when speaking to other people, so making sure that you are not, you know, giving harmful information to others or you are not even receiving harmful information yourself, and considering whether people you are communicating with are actually safe and trusted people.

So if you are communicating with other adults about an issue, are these adults that are safe and that you can trust? So are these adults like school staff, for example, are these members of your family or extended family, or neighbours or family friends? Are they people that you are familiar with that you know and that you trust and that you feel safe? Or are they just complete strangers? 'Cause you need to think about these things in terms of keeping yourself safe.

So what might this look like in practise? So active citizenship projects relating to the concept of law could pose a safeguarding risk if pupils try to observe or speak to people directly involved in criminal behaviour.

So for example, if for your project, you are looking at stricter laws about drugs and illegal drugs and drug dealing and things like that, trying to observe a local area that is commonly used by people to take drugs or to buy drugs would be putting yourself in an unsafe situation.

So you might think, do you know what? For my research, I want to show one issue, it is to have drugs in this area so therefore I'm gonna go to this area and I'm gonna observe what happens in relation to drugs.

And although there's a reason behind that, that is clearly putting yourself in an unsafe situation because it's putting yourself in a situation where illegal activity is potentially taking place.

Likewise, trying to get in touch with a local suspected drug dealer to ask them questions would also pose a significant safeguarding risk.

So again, you might think fantastic person to talk to, they'd be able to give a real life testimony about, you know, drugs and and drug dealing and things like that.

But again, ultimately, you'd then be putting yourself in a situation where you are communicating with someone that might not be safe or you're putting yourself in a situation that might not be safe or where illegal activity is happening.

So you need to really think about what it is you're going to be looking at or who it is you're going to be talking to and just really making sure that you're keeping yourself safe.

So let's have a check for understanding.

Is Laura safeguarding herself effectively? And then I want you to explain your answer.

So let's have a look at what Laura's doing.

"My project is looking at anti-social behaviour in my local area.

I'm going to go out with my camera and try and collect photos of anti-social behaviour taking place." So just pause and think, is Laura safeguarding herself effectively and why? Explain your answer.

So in that case, no, because Laura is putting herself in a situation where she could be observing situations that could ultimately be dangerous because it's anti-social behaviour, so that idea for her research would not be safe.

So in that case, let's go a little bit further with this check for understanding.

Can you advise Laura of a safe way to gather primary data? So Laura's saying, "My project is looking at anti-social behaviour in my local area.

If taking photos of anti-social behaviour is dangerous, what could I do instead?" So pause and have a think If you can help Laura.

So Laura could carry out questionnaires to find out people's opinions about anti-social behaviour.

She could also ask to interview her school's police officer or even email her local policing team to ask them what they think about the issue of anti-social behaviour.

So still talking to people, still getting people's ideas, but she's not putting herself in an unsafe situation.

When carrying out secondary research, so remember, this is research that already exists, it's already out there and you are looking at that and you're analysing that, so when carrying out that type of research, pupils can safeguard themselves by ensuring they're not exposing themselves to harmful online content, ensuring they understand about misinformation, disinformation, and malformation, and know how to check sources for reliability.

So again, that's misinformation.

So information that's wrong that might not be any malice or bad intention behind that is just simply not true.

Disinformation, so that's when people are deliberately trying to disinform.

So purposefully putting out false information with the hope of ultimately it causing a few problems and malformation, information that's not necessarily untrue.

it can be true and valid information but it's literally just being shared for malicious reasons.

So just having that understanding, that digital literacy awareness about things that you're looking at online and making sure that you are, you know, you are able to spot when things might not be exactly as they're seen.

And you also know how to check sources for reliability as well.

And also consider whether they may be being exposed to conspiracy theories whilst researching.

There's lots and lots of things that you can quite easily come across on the internet where people have got reasons why things have happened and lots of sort of conspiracy theories are out there.

So you just need to be really aware that when you are looking at secondary research, especially secondary research that's online, there's a lot of information out there that's fantastic and true and really, really useful, but there's going to be a lot of other information online that on the one hand, just might be not very good and not very effective 'cause it's not true but it could actually be harmful as well.

So again, what might this look like in practise? So active citizenship projects relating to the concept of politics and democracy could pose potential safeguarding risks.

And that's because politics can be a really emotive topic, and therefore if secondary research involves reading and watching unregulated articles and videos online, this could potentially expose you to extremist, offensive, and upsetting content.

And reading conspiracy accounts could also be confusing and alarming, exposing you to lots of misinformation.

So if your action is something to do with democracy or politics, you know that's a topic that people do feel really, really passionately about, and that's fine and that's okay to feel passionately about a subject, that's good to feel strongly about politics, but what that can sometimes mean is that people might post things online about political policies, that might be like immigration policies or certain parties that can be completely false.

So you need to make sure again that when you're looking at information online, you are looking at that really, really critically, and again, you're not accessing things that could be harmful.

So let's have a check for understanding.

So Alex is carrying out some research.

Why is Alex not safeguarding himself effectively? So Alex is saying, "My project is looking at the issue of immigration.

I have created a fake social media profile and have started following some accounts with pretty extreme views, but they are providing lots of useful information." So pause and think why is Alex not safeguarding himself effectively? So in this case, although he was using a fake account, and perhaps Alex has done that so that he's not using his real account, he's aware that he's just doing this for his research, he might shut it down later, so he might have thought that that's a good thing to do, regardless of what account he's using, Alex is exposing himself to harmful online content that's likely to be full of misinformation, disinformation, malformation.

And what he's seeing and reading could be really, really harmful, and it could actually cause him to feel quite distressed.

And Alex is actually saying some of the information I'm reading and seeing on social media is really racist and violent.

Some of it makes me feel anxious, especially when my, the accounts try to communicate with me.

So again, going about thinking, oh, actually I'm gonna get some really, really interesting information, actually that's really distressing and that's harmful content that he's accessing.

When carrying out the actual active citizenship project itself, pupils can safeguard themselves by ensuring they have risk assessed what they are doing with their teacher.

Your teacher is ultimately the expert in the room.

If you're unsure about anything at all, you should be checking in with your teacher.

Your teacher will be able to anticipate any potential safeguarding risks with your proposed action plan, and will be able to support you in making adjustments to ensure you are kept safe.

When you are thinking about the action that you're doing, you might not necessarily spot that things could cause problems later down the line.

That's why it's a really good idea to check that through with your teacher.

And this might feel frustrating, you might think, oh, I just wanna get on with it.

Why have we gotta check in with our teacher? But it's a really important step in ensuring you can carry out your active citizenship project safely and appropriately, and it's really showing respect to everyone that's going to be involved in your project.

For task A, I'd like you to create a safety checklist that can be used by citizenship pupils when carrying out their active citizenship project.

This should also include an introduction that explains why safeguarding yourself is important.

Your safety checklist introduction may have included: "Introduction.

Carrying out active citizenship projects is lots of fun and really interesting, but there are risks too.

You might be speaking to new people, observing situations, and engaging with online content, some of which might not be regulated, so it's important you know how to keep yourself safe." You might then have gone on to create a checklist which could have included: One, choose safe research topics.

Two, carry out a risk assessment with your teacher.

Three, talk to safe and trusted people.

Four, stay safe online by avoiding unregulated content.

Five, watch out of conspiracy theories and misinformation.

Five, protect your own mental health.

Six, be accompanied when conducting research by a trusted adult.

So we've had a look at how we can safeguard ourselves.

Now, let's have a look at how we can safeguard others.

So Lucas is asking, "I'm confused, why and how do we safeguard others?" So pause and have a think.

Why do we need to consider the safeguarding of others with active citizenship? Active citizenship projects are collaborative, this means they involve working with other people.

Whilst it is important to safeguard yourself, it's also important and ethical so it's the right thing to do, the respectful thing to do, to safeguard others.

This includes other pupils who are in your group and anyone else who you might involve in your active citizenship project whilst carrying out your primary research or the project itself.

Because there could actually be huge numbers of people that are actually involved in your project when you start to carry it out.

When working with your group to choose an issue to focus on for your project, it's important to value their personal lived experience.

So what might be an acceptable and safe issue to explore for one pupil might not be for someone else.

So for example, some of the pupils in a group might want to choose a project where they are lobbying decision-makers about sentencing guidelines and the prison system.

And that might be a really interesting and great topic for some of those pupils to get involved in.

However, there could be a pupil in the group that might have a family member who's been in prison or they might have experienced crime when the perpetrator was given a custodial sentence.

So for that individual pupil spending weeks or months involved in an active citizenship project looking at the prison system could be really distressing.

So regardless of if the rest of the group want to do it, it's where there needs to really be that respect and you are safeguarding that member of your team by listening to them and making sure that together you are picking a different issue, one that everyone feels safe with.

And this highlights the importance of choosing an issue that everyone is comfortable with.

It can't be anything where anyone in your team is going to feel unsafe or uncomfortable.

Primary research may involve interviewing others or asking people to complete a questionnaire.

By doing this, you'll be exposing them to information or making them think about their lived experience, so it's therefore really important to consider are the target audience an appropriate age? So think about the questions that you are asking them or the questions in your questionnaire.

People that are answering that, are they inappropriate age? Could what you are asking them cause any emotional distress? How can we ensure that the audience are aware of what we're asking of them? And also, have we made it clear that they can opt out at any time? And that's really, really important with research.

It might be that they start going through the questions and they didn't quite realise what the questions were going to be about or they thought they'd be okay, and they might start answering, it might be making 'em feel upset or distressed.

At any point during the research, they absolutely should just be able to say, sorry, I don't want to continue, and that should be absolutely fine.

So also making sure that you are making it clear as well when asking them to complete any research.

If you want to find out what young people think about a topic, make sure you carefully choose the right age group to ask.

This will help you to get the useful answers that you need, but it will also make sure that everyone stays safe.

Some topics are considered safe, and could be discussed with pupils from any year group.

So talking about things like recycling or services in the local area or school policies, you could talk to students from any year group and that would be absolutely fine.

However, other topics may need to be approached with caution, especially with younger year groups.

So for example, violent crime, you would definitely avoid younger year groups 'cause it's just simply not age-appropriate.

And even with older year groups, you'd need to make sure you absolutely had explained what the questionnaire was about because people might have lived experience with this that could make it quite distressing for them.

There is also a duty to inform participants about what your issue is, what you want to ask them, and what you'll be doing with their responses because this allows them to give informed consent.

So they need to know actually what it is you're doing for your action, why you are asking them these questions, and what you are going to be doing with their responses.

In particular, they might want to know when is my name going to be mentioned in your project.

So you need to make sure that you fully explained everything so that when they say "yes, I'll take part," they'll been able to do that with informed consent.

No one should be pressured to take part in your primary research, and the option to opt out at any point must be explained and respected.

And that's really, really hard sometimes because you might be so keen to get questionnaires complete or get things done that you might maybe put a little bit of pressure on, maybe you don't even realise that you are doing it, but you have to take the time to explain what you are doing.

You can't just kind of go up to a group of younger students and say, "Do this questionnaire" without giving them any information.

That's not an ethical way to go about things.

So let's have a check for understanding.

Is Izzy safeguarding others effectively? And I want you to try and explain your answer.

So Izzy is saying, "My project involves lobbying the government for even stricter weapon laws.

I'm going to show people's articles about real life victims and ask for their opinions regarding current sentencing guidelines." So pause and have a think about that.

No, Izzy is not effectively safeguarding others because she wants to show information that could be emotionally distressing to others.

She's talking about showing people's articles about real life victims, and that could be really, really distressing for many people.

Let's have a check for understanding.

In what way might Andeep's actions show a lack of safeguarding considerations towards others? So Andeep is saying, "I have a younger brother.

His mates all look up to me.

I'm going to make them all fill in my questionnaire, they will do it for me because they all think I'm cool." So pause and have a think, in what way might Andeep's action show a lack of safeguarding considerations towards others? So whilst Andeep's brother and his friends might be more than happy to complete the questionnaires, Andeep's statement suggests they will complete it just to please him, and this does not indicate informed consent.

In that case, it would still be just as important for Andeep to make sure that he was explaining what the questionnaire was and making sure that they knew that they could opt out, they didn't have to complete it.

There might also be elements of your action that involve raising awareness for a particular issue that involves inequality or injustice.

Whilst this could be a valid and purposeful action to carry out, it is also really important to bear in mind the lived experiences of others.

You should ensure that people are given advanced warning of any potentially emotive actions and are provided with the opportunity to opt out if they choose to.

So for example, organising and leading an assembly for your groups about current global conflicts and how they affect people seeking asylum can be a really powerful way to raise awareness.

And it's not that you shouldn't do this, because that's a really, really powerful way to raise awareness.

It could also be part of a bigger project to persuade the government to increase international aid.

However, you might need to also consider that some pupils in your school may have experienced global conflict themselves, or they might have had to left their home for different reasons.

And this could mean that the assembly topic might be upsetting for them.

So it's important to speak with teacher to get advice on how to handle the topic sensitively.

So let's have a look at a check for understanding.

How did this pupil demonstrate an awareness of the importance of safeguarding others? Or how did this person show an awareness of the importance of safeguarding others? So my project is about the cost of living in the UK and how this has impacted people's standard of living.

I wanted to lead an assembly to raise awareness.

I'm aware that pupils in my school may have experienced this, and therefore find the topic distressing.

I worked with my teacher to create an email to form tutors so they could warn pupils about the content and support anyone that might not want to attend.

I also informed our safeguarding lead as I thought she might need to be aware.

Pause and have a think.

How did this pupil demonstrate an awareness of the importance Of safeguarding others? So they understood that their assembly content might be distressing for some pupils.

They worked with their teacher to create an email to go out to form tutors so that they could support any affected pupils, and they also informed the school's safeguarding lead.

So this student was showing a really good understanding about the importance of safeguarding others.

For task B, I'd like you to explain why safeguarding others is important during an active citizenship project.

Your explanation should be supported with specific examples of what this could look like in practise.

Pause while you have a go at task B.

So when explaining why safeguarding others is important during your project, you may have included: Safeguarding others during an active citizenship project is just as important as keeping ourselves safe.

When we're working with other people, whether that's our group or other pupils in our school, we have a responsibility to make sure we're not putting them at emotional risk.

For example, we need to think about whether our target audience is the right age.

If we're doing a project about serious topics like crime or discrimination, it might not be suitable to ask really young children about their opinions.

They might not understand it or it could upset them.

You may have also included.

We also need to consider whether the questions we're asking could cause emotional distress.

For example, if we're doing the survey about people's views towards immigration, someone who has experienced prejudice or discrimination due to being an immigrant will likely find the survey upsetting, and we need to be well-informed so that they could make an informed decision about whether they wish to complete it or not.

Another part of safeguarding is making sure people know what we're asking them to do.

We can do this by giving a short explanation that tells them what the project is about and what we'll be doing with the information.

And we should always make it clear that people can opt out.

In summary of the lesson, how can we ensure effective safeguarding? Safeguarding is a measure taken to protect someone or something or to prevent something undesirable and is a very important thing to consider when carrying out active citizenship.

It is important to safeguard yourself by making sure you're not putting yourself in dangerous situations or exposing yourself to harmful content.

It is also important to safeguard others by making sure that you are considering their age and lived experience in relation to your issue to not cause them distress.

To ensure effective safeguarding carrying out a risk assessment with your teacher is a sensible step to make while planning your project.

This brings us to the end of this lesson.

Well done for all your hard work, and I hope you'll come back with some more citizenship lessons in the future.