Lesson video

Hello and welcome to today's citizenship lesson.

I'm Mrs. Barry and I will be your teacher today.

We are looking at lesson five of six on a series of lessons today that we've been looking at on what are our identities and our communities.

And today's lesson is about how we are all connected within the UK.

For today's lesson, you will need your brain, something to write with such as a pen or pencil, something to write on, and please make sure that you've turned off any apps or notifications that might pop up.

So a distraction free for this lesson.

Make sure you're in a workspace where you can concentrate.

And when you are ready, we will begin.

So we're going to start our lesson today by looking at different connections and you can see connections within different systems. So we're going to have a look at these pictures, and I want you to pause when you're ready and decide what you could make with them.

So just to clarify these pictures a bit, we've got some wheels on the left, a chain, a pedal and handlebar.

So be creative.

Think about what you could make with them, and when you're ready, you can press play.

Okay so hopefully, you came up with the idea that you could put all those different things together to make a bike.

Now individually, those items that we had, you can't do very much.

You can't do very much with wheels without a frame to put them on for them to work and function properly.

You can't do very much with the set of handlebars or there you might try and sit and pretend to ride your bike with a pair of handlebars in your hands, but you're not actually going to go anywhere or do anything.

And so it's really important that we recognise that connections are really significant.

So individually they can't do much, but together they can function better and provide some kind of service.

All those parts that we looked up, come together and could form a functioning bike.

Now within our communities this is the same.

We have lots of different connections, through those connections we function much better.

And you may have heard of the phrase, two heads are better than one.

That's because working together through those connections, you have more ideas and you can do more together.

And these might be related to our identities and things we can do, so you share your passions or your abilities or skills, and you work together with others to make things much better.

So what connections do you have? And I'm going to ask you here to just do a task two, which is looking at who and what you are connected to.

So think about school, and create a mind map which shows your connections with other people and groups, starting with those groups and connections you have in school.

Now if you want to go beyond school with your mind map, then you are more than welcome to do so, but I'm going to ask you to pause here, spend about five minutes, just thinking about those connections that you have with other people.

And when you're ready to continue with our lesson, then do press play.

So hopefully you've had a think about that and I've kept this as brief as I can, just to start us off thinking about those connections.

So within school, you might have friendship groups.

You might also be connected to a religion or you might be connected to a local council or a neighbourhood community.

So depending on where your school is and what goes on with your school, depends on the connections you have with others.

How are we all connected? Because we have this concept of collective decision making.

So when we work together, we work together to make ideas happen and to put things forward.

So we're all connected by the decisions we make and the changes we put in place.

And it's a bit like a chain reaction.

So when we do one thing it knocks on and impacts another, and then that will have a further impact.

And so as you go along, it's a bit like dominoes.

When you stack them all up in a row, you knock one down and it knocks all the other ones down as well.

So every action that you have will have a further reaction, just like a chain reaction.

So before you know it, you might have impacted hundreds of people across the UK by one small thing that you do.

And we're going to have a think about these chain reactions in terms of actions and consequences.

So I've got a list of different actions that I've thought about.

And I want you to have a think about what the outcome might be in these situations.

What might happen.

I'm going to ask you to pause.

You could write this down into your own grid, where you go over to the worksheet and print this off and add to it.

That's up to you.

But you need to have a think about the consequences that might happen as a result of the actions listed there.

Take you about five minutes, when you're ready to continue with our lesson, then do you press play.

So here's some of the consequences I've put down for these different actions.

If you tell a joke, hopefully will it be funny, then you might make your friend laugh in that situation.

If you kick a ball towards the goal, you're either going to miss or you're going to score.

And we've gone here for you score a goal and let's be positive.

And then the next one is you fall over.

Now if you fall over, hopefully you don't hurt yourself.

But in this instance I've said that might hurt your knee, for example.

You complain to your school council about the food in the canteen.

And as a result of that a meeting is organised in this instance.

That's what I've said might happen with the canteen to discuss the issues.

And the last one there, you write a letter to your head teacher about litter in the school.

And hopefully your head teacher is a sort of head teacher who listens and they invite you to lead a campaign group about litter in the school.

So they invite you to take action on what you are complaining about.

And those are all consequences.

They're things that happen as a result of an action.

And they're like chain reactions.

A one thing happens and then a resulting consequence occurs as a result of something you've done.

Now this can be furthered because a chain reaction doesn't stop and start with one and then one.

Often, they continue into bigger things.

And that's what we're talking about here.

When we're talking about connections in our local communities across the UK, because one thing that happens in your school could actually impact other schools across the country for example.

Or one thing you do in your local community could then impact what someone else does in their local community.

And it could become the countrywide thing.

So we're going to look at future consequences for those.

So again, you can either add to your current grids that you've got, or you can go over to the worksheet and print it off and make sure that you fill in the boxes, of what you think could happen.

So when you're ready you can pause at those future consequences, what might happen next, in other words.

And then press play when you're ready to continue with our lesson.

Here you go.

These are all the ideas I've come up with.

You might have different ones.

It doesn't mean they're wrong, just cause they're different.

It's just the way that we think might be slightly different in this instance.

So for that first action, the future consequence, your friend makes others laugh by telling the same saying joke.

So you've told this one person this joke.

It's made them laugh.

They've remembered it.

And then they're taking it on to other people who then might take it on to further people as well.

So you're making lots of people happy by just telling one person that joke.

Which is very, very good.

Second, when you kick a ball towards a goal if you score that goal, you're going to make people very happy.

Falling over and hurting your knee.

And then from that experience, you can advise others on how they might stop and stuff.

So for example, if you tripped over a brick, you might actually move that brick.

Or you might just warn people, oh, by the way if you go in that way, you're going to trip over.

And so you're having an impact on other people.

Now, these last two are ones which you could have a greater long-term impact as a result of something you do.

And these the connections that we're talking about.

And then in your case where something you do, within your own school could impact others in other schools or impact students in years ahead, even after you've left the school.

So you might make a complaint about food in the canteen to your school council.

One of the future consequences of that could be that changes are made.

Other students are pleased by those changes and they continue for a long time impacting students in that school long after you've left.

That last one you write a letter to your head teacher about litter in the school.

Well a future consequence or a long-term consequence is that litter around the school is reduced and students respect site more, keeping it cleaner.

And potentially that is something that could go to other schools and other schools recycle more too.

So you can see that these connections could be just one person doing something that then impacts other people too.

The British Youth Parliament is a really useful example here.

A case study of young people getting involved in their communities and having an impact.

The Youth Parliament is young people working together to create social and political change.

So, they all working and mimicking in a sense, our parliament that makes all the decisions around the country, just as a young group.

Thinking about issues that affect young people and those issues might be social so within communities, what people do or they might be political.

So there might be a broader issue there that they are looking at.

And it works by having young people voted into that Youth Parliament and they discuss and debate issues, working with different organisations and sometimes bringing those issues to the adult parliament's attention for them to discuss about so that young people's voices are heard.

And the issues that young people face are discussed by those who can actually make change happen.

And its purpose is to work with under 25.

So young people and allow them to represent themselves on issues they feel are important.

Getting involved with their local, national and global communities.

So some of those issues are very localised, by the different areas within United Kingdom.

They might spread across nations in the United Kingdom, or they might actually be issues that are faced by the whole world.

For example, climate change might be a global issue faced by global communities.

And so how are we all connected? Well, each of those different parts of the United Kingdom are coming together, with all these young people voted in these different areas of the United Kingdom and voted into the Youth Parliament.

And they're working together on issues that are seen as important by their peers, by other young people similar to them.

So, now this Youth Parliament votes on issues and they call this Make your Mark.

So they ask each area to hold an election and vote on what issues need to be covered.

So lots of issues got get put out and people vote on them and they decide which of the top ones.

So you can see there on the left, we've got different topics that have been voted as the most important issues.

So top of the UK, so nationwide topic would be protecting the environment.

And second to that tackling hate crime, for example.

And then we have some devolved topics.

Now the United Kingdom is split into different nations and different nations have their own areas, which they might make separate decisions on.

So some areas of the United Kingdom, want different needs when it comes to things like health or crime.

So you can see here, the top two there devolved topics.

So within different areas, some might say end knife crime, and some would say mental health issues.

Okay.

The third one there is another example of a devolved topic, Curriculum for Life, because that's to do with education.

So, the way that education works in England is different for example, to the way that education works in Scotland.

And so those topics are unique to different nations within the United Kingdom.

Now how we all connected here? You can there on the right, all the different areas within the United Kingdom and you can see what we call turnout.

That is the number of people who attend that vote.

So, in this case the number of young people, the percentage of young people who took the opportunity to vote on these issues.

And all those votes come together to decide on the topics that they want to focus on.

So you can see there, the UK topics.

That's what they're looking at as a result of those young people who turned out to vote and put their mark down against the issues they wanted the Youth Parliament to look at.

And so they both work together to bring young people together on issues important to them.

And it allows them to make positive change by using their skills and ideas as a group.

And so just like you need all the individual items to make that bike that we looked at at the start of the lesson, you need lots of skills and ideas to successfully make change happen.

And one person can make a change.

They can come up with an idea and they can certainly have an impact.

And as I mentioned earlier, two heads are better than one, many heads are better than one.

And so coming together can really make change happen and make a massive impact on all other people.

A democratic process allow all the people within the democracy to have a say in what happens in their local, national and global community.

So that fact that they're able to vote, which is a democratic process means that you get to say and you can be part of those connections that make a change.

And it brings people together to work on those.

And something you might think about is a quote here from Mother Teresa.

And she said, "I can do things you cannot, you can do things I cannot, together we can do great things." So what is she trying to say here? How do this connect to what we're looking at? Basically, if you bring all your skills together, say one person is really good at speaking, but another person is really good at art.

You could create a really good presentation because the person who can do the art, will do the slides and make them look wonderful.

And the person who can do the speaking, will do that alongside and together that could be a really great presentation.

So basically if you've got lots of people together, aiming for the same thing then great things can happen.

Now as we just saw, there are lots of different areas which vote on the issues and are put forward to the Youth Parliament.

You may have locally, a youth county council, which work at local level.

So they will look up issues within your local area.

And they have 620 of these active across UK.

So you could find out if you have one locally and what they are doing.

But in Kent, there is a youth county council and they decided that their local community should focus on these three issues.

And you can see the connection from local level within Kent to the national level.

Because two of the three issues that young people in Kent wanted to focus on were focused on by the Youth Parliament.

So Curriculum for Life and mental health big featured within Kent and were voted on by young Kent people and were put forward to the Youth Parliament.

And each county's results come together to decide on which issues the whole country will focus on through democratic, that's through voting.

And you can see here, those issues that were voted for are present.

Now what differences are made as a result of these connections.

Because in our local area have put these ideas forward to the Youth Parliament and those connections are important looking at those impacts.

So when we did the activity, different actions and consequences that happened.

So here we've got Curriculum for Life.

Now, as a result of people putting that forward head teachers are now being encouraged to sign a pledge to say that they will ensure all students receive a Curriculum for Life through Citizenship and PSHE.

Now that includes things like how to manage your money.

That's what they mean by Curriculum for Life.

Anti-bullying, well locally, information resources were produced by the Kent Youth County Council and distributed or given out to young people.

And then mental health.

Resources have been created for schools and youth clubs, including lesson plans used in schools and for assemblies and recommendations have been put across nationally for schools to ensure they cover the areas that young people have identified as being really important.

So those connections have made a difference within Kent and particularly for Curriculum for Life and mental health.

Those would have gone national as a result of the Youth Parliament putting that across.

So just a one area putting an idea forward, but all those young people voting on those issues, they are having an impact.

So these connections nationally have made a difference because there are five key areas that they discussed nationally within the Youth Parliament held in the House of Commons and campaigns were set up on all those issues.

But they essentially at the end, decided to put forward one idea to members of the adult parliament to debate further on.

And that was climate change.

Now that wasn't one of the ones that they focused on in Kent, for example.

But the majority of young people did vote for all those issues.

And that was the one they felt would be best argued about and represented when taken to parliament.

Now, our last task for this lesson is just to think back through this lesson and think about what key terms and ideas you have learned about.

So there's four that I've picked up on.

Democracy, British Youth Parliament, turnout and campaign.

And I'd like you to pause this and just rearrange those matching the correct definition or concept to the key term.

When you're ready you can press play and we will check your answers.

So here we are, they're all colour coordinated and matched up.

So democracy is a system of government where people are able to express their views fairly to come vote.

British Youth Parliament.

That's the youth organisation in the UK where young people come together and debate important issues.

Turnout is the number of people attending or taking part in an event such as an election.

And then a campaign is where you work together in an organised and active way towards a particular goal typically, politically or socially.

It's about done, that's the end of our lesson.

We have gone through how we are all connected within the UK.

We've looked at the importance of connection, starting with that bike.

Thinking about how working together means you can do more and you have a better impact and function better.

We have looked at community connections.

So how people within a community such as a school are connected to other people and how that creates a bigger society.

We have looked at UK connections through the example of Make your Mark, looking at the Youth Parliament and local county council youth groups.

And throughout that, we've checked your understanding.

So hopefully, you have some idea and could explain how we are connected to others within the United Kingdom.

And if there's anything you're unsure about, then obviously you're welcome to go back through the lesson again and have another look.

I've got a takeaway task for you to do.

So we are looking at making your mark and we looked at that example of the voting and looking at how you can impact your local community.

So have a look and find out, does your school take part in Make your Mark.

If not, then you could write a letter to your head teacher or your citizenship teacher using the information from this lesson and explain the benefits of voting on issues and how this keeps us connected and is important for our communities.

Once you've done that, you could email your head teacher and your citizenship teacher and see what they think.

And I'd be really interested to see how you get on with that.

So you could share your work with Oak National.

Please make sure that you ask your parent or carer to do that on Instagram, Facebook or Twitter using the @OakNational, #LearnwithOak tags.

So that's our lesson, well done.

And I look forward to seeing you for another citizenship lesson soon.

Do make sure that you complete the exit quiz before you knock off.

Well done.