Lesson video

Hello, everybody.

And welcome to lesson three of how we can make a difference in society.

I'm Mrs. Baker, and I'll be taking you through today's lesson, which is all about how we research for our Active Citizenship Project.

I hope by now, you're able to find somewhere quiet without too many disturbances to do your learning.

If you're not using your phone to learn from, please turn it off so you don't get distracted and shut down any apps on your computer.

So you are focused with me for the entire lesson.

For those of you that are learning on your phone, please try and turn off` sort of messenger or anything like that.

That's going to flash up and take your attention away.

And we can get started on today's lesson.

So I'll join you in just a moment and tell you what you need for the lesson.

Please remember as well if you have got notes from previous lessons in this unit, they may well be very helpful for you.

So if you keep them all together, you may want to grab those before we start.

Thanks then, see you in a moment.

Hello, everybody.

And welcome back.

Just to let you know what you need for today's lesson.

Oh, I'm really sorry, Dennis, the cat wants to get involved in today's learning.

Anyway, just to let you know what's involved in today's lesson.

Obviously we're going to need our brains ready to think and you're going to need something to write with and something to write on.

If you have some highlighters that might be helpful as you go through, but they're not essential.

As I mentioned just a moment ago, if you do have your notes from previous lessons, they may be good for you to refer back to.

And it's really a good idea as we're working on a project or you're working on a project, the kind of project that you'd like to start for your active citizenship campaigns.

Please think about holding all of this work together in a folder or in the same notebook and you will be able to go back to it when you need.

So if you do need to go off and collect anything to write with or on, please do so now for the rest of us, let's get started.

So, what are the topics that we'll be looking at today? What today's lesson is all about where we can go to get our information.

And there's two types of information that we need.

One of these is a primary type of information.

And the second one is a secondary type of information.

We then also need to think about the skills that you need to develop through this project.

We already know that we've made a list of your skills from last lesson and you've looked at the skills that you think you're good at, and maybe some of the ones that you need to help with.

So we're going to look at those again.

And you think about, or we're going to think about how we carry out primary and secondary research.

So what research opportunities are there for you, especially when you look at your own projects.

And finally, we're going to think about forming that team that you are going to be working with.

So, starting off then, what we're going to think about for your first task is where would you go to research something? Now, not necessarily something to do with citizenship or your citizenship action or issue, but just think, if you had to do some research for any subjects, where would you go? What would you do? And maybe you would do it in person, or maybe you would do it online or maybe you could think of some other ideas.

So just mind map for me, any ideas that you have that allow you to research something.

So as many ideas as you've got writing down where you can carry out your research.

So if you pause the video now and complete that task for me, and I'll see you with some ideas in just a minute Here are some feedback from task one.

Perhaps you've got some of these ideas, perhaps you've got more than these ideas or some different ideas to the ones that I've managed to come up with.

But have a look.

These are some suggestions that I've made about how we can carry out research.

Online, we can visit websites and organisations like charities, Dennis again, sorry.

And also you could create new websites or use websites, sorry, to look out new stories connected to your projects.

If you were looking to hold meetings with someone to find out what they knew, these could be face-to-face meetings or they could be telephone calls.

Or of course, now I'm sure we're all getting used to doing these online meetings as well.

So they're all important uses of research too.

And other forms of research would that could be things like newspapers or magazines, or maybe reports that you can get hold of from organisations.

There's all kinds of research that you can access about all kinds of topics but specifically for your citizenship action.

Two important words that we need to learn or two important areas of research that you need to understand for today's lesson are primary research.

Now, primary research is information you gather for yourself about your topic.

It can come from a range of sources, including interviews, surveys, polls, observations and votes.

Now of course your interviews and your surveys and polls don't have to be carried out face-to-face.

We've got lots of technology and ideas these days that allow us to carry them out in different ways.

And we'll discuss that a little later in the lesson.

Our second kind of research is our secondary research.

And it's research that is made by somebody else, but it helps with your investigation.

This could come from the government reports, newspapers, videos and reports, and non-governmental organisations.

Basically it's any kind of information that's relevant to your active research project that you can use but you did not create.

So that gives us lots of opportunities to go to lots of different sources to help you have an informed, Active Citizenship Project.

So, let's recap again, what our citizenship skills are and what we are developing across these projects.

So you can see that some of the skills that are highlighted in pink.

The skills that are highlighted are the ones which you will demonstrate while choosing your topic and carrying out your research.

Remember, even if there's an area you're not strong in on these highlighted ones, your choice of team members should have somebody that is strong in this area.

So if you think you're not very good at planning or maybe you're not very good at research and inquiry, when you're working out who you're going to work with, try and find someone that has got a strength in that area and then they can help you develop and become stronger too.

So, I'm going to introduce you to something here.

That's called the Active Citizenship Cycle.

And you can see it's a cycle that leads into one another.

That's three parts.

The first part is get planning, then take action and then measure the impact.

Now I've got a box around the get planning stage because this is the part that we'll really be focusing on over the next lesson.

And you can see that hopefully, you have already started some of these steps.

You've already started to look at choosing an issue and you've already started to consider who can help you with that issue and what kind of action you can take.

So in our lessons so far, we've already looked at steps one to three.

We'll also be looking over the next few lessons about how you'll know whether your project will be successful.

And how you will plan to get ready to take your action.

So this is a really nice little app.

So Active Citizenship Cycle and a really nice little aid for your memory if you need to about how you go around taking this action.

So feel free to come back to this at any stage, if you need to.

So just to confirm then.

Steps so far in our recent lessons.

We've discussed what active citizenship is and the type of project that you could carry on.

We then went on to look at the skills you need to demonstrate growing your project.

And our next step is to say right, which of our projects are going to be suitable for a topic or issue that you can focus on for your project? In some schools, your teachers may give you a topic and others, you may have to choose yourself.

But as I've mentioned before, it's very, very important that your topic links to the specification.

And that's because that's what the examples ask for if you're carrying out your GCSE Citizenship Studies courses.

So basically, anything you choose to investigate as your active citizenship topic should be linked to lessons that you have covered or lessons that you will be covering.

Now, if you complete in this access citizenship projects, not because you're doing a GCSE, but just because it's part of your schoolwork and it's on your curriculum, then you do have a little bit more flexibility but it's probably helpful to make your topic around something you've already learned about.

So you do already have some knowledge that you can build on.

So by now, I'm hoping that you do know a topic area you would like to develop.

And it should be linked to these big issues that we were discussing last lesson.

So we have the choice of politics, democracy, and the governments, law and justice, rights, Britain's relationship with the rest of the world.

And we know we can break these down and into smaller areas that are more focused so you can set yourself a nice, simple goal.

You may have an idea of the team you want to work with.

The skills they have to compliment yours and they should also feel passionate about your topic.

That idea of really engaging and wanting to feel passionate about your topic is so important because it means that you're going to enjoy and feel really rewarded after your project work.

So now, we're moving on and we're going to look at developing your ideas.

So now we're moving on and we're going to look at developing your ideas.

And the skill that we'll be focusing on today is all about research and enquiry.

Now we must remember that this research skill is so important because it informs what you will be doing in terms of your action but also the fact that there is a need there to carry out the action in the first place.

So your research is one of the most important sections of your Active Citizenship Projects.

You can not begin to carry out some research into your topic area to find out what the issues are and what possible actions your group could take.

So time to meet Tyler, everybody.

This is Tyler from the ACT Academy.

He's completing his GCSE Citizenship Studies and an Active Citizenship Project.

Tyler has decided he wants to focus on the topic of homelessness in his local area.

He has noticed an increase in the number of people who are sleeping in his town, who are sleeping rough in his town and is concerned about their rights.

So already, Tyler has found an area of concern to him.

So he's seen more people sleeping rough on the streets, in the area that he lives in.

And he's worked out that this will fit in because it's a rights project.

He's saying, okay.

So if you're sleeping on the street then you're probably not accessing all the rights that you could do or you should do.

So task two, time to get those thinking brains going again.

So what steps should Tyler take next? Drawing on what you've already learned, suggest the next steps Tyler should take to progress his Active Citizenship Project.

You can write a list of all the steps you would recommend to him.

So imagine Tyler has come to you.

And he said okay, you've done some lessons about Active Citizenship.

I've chosen my topic.

What do I need to do now? Now, for those of you that are happy with that task, you can pause the video now and start to complete it.

For those of you think you'd like a little bit more support on what you need to do, stay with me and I'll talk you through.

So if you remember last week, we looked at this chart or grid and we wrote down, didn't we? Some options of activities and how you would plan.

So perhaps when you write your steps down, you can talk to Tyler or advise Tyler that this is the type of thing he may want to do.

Remember, he's identified the support, the issue he wants to support, and he's works out that it's going to probably be able to help rough sleepers but what he hasn't done so far, it said what's he's planning to do or what benefit and change he wants to make.

So that's an area that Tyler needs to include.

And perhaps that's what you need to tell Tyler to start thinking about.

So here's some feedback then in terms of what we need to tell Tyler.

Tyler should check his topic links to the specification.

He's already identified that it's a rights issue.

So we know that it should.

Tyler needs to think about the benefits or changes he would like to achieve for these rough sleepers.

He needs to think about the group of people.

He wants to aim his action in to.

Who to help.

Who could make a difference.

So he is he trying to make things better for the rough sleepers on the streets, or is he trying to make, for example, the council take some action for the people on the streets? So there's a different group that he could be aiming at there, either the people who are suffering or the people that could do something about it.

And depending on which group he chose, Tyler would have to plan his action in a very different way.

And the next step Tyler would need to take is to research who already helps with this topic, because that might help him work out what action he could take.

Perhaps there's something already going on locally or nationally that he himself could join in with and support the homeless rough sleepers in his area.

So hopefully, you've got some of these steps and you realise what Tyler was to do next because it will be down to you now.

You've identified your topics to take those steps too.

And I think one of the most important steps on there is to really work out who you're aiming or action at.

And here with Tyler's example, it's a really good example to say there's two groups of people here.

Number one, the people that are being affected and sleeping on the streets.

How, oh, we could help them.

We could provide practical things for them.

Or alternatively, we could aim our action at people who are higher up the chain.

Somebody like the councillors or maybe the national government to say okay, I've seen an increase in my town for national, for rough sleepers.

So what's your policy as our decision makers, as the people that write laws, as the people that support, your residents, what are you going to do about the rough sleepers? Okay.

So that's the different choices that Tyler has got there.

So Tyler is found that his chosen topic of homelessness is part of the specification.

As he could focus on the theme of rights.

The right to shelter or a home was covered in the 1948 United Nations Declaration of Human Rights Act.

In Article 25, which says everyone has the right to an adequate standard of living.

It is also protected by the UK Human Rights Act of 1998 under Article eight.

So we know that there is some basis here for Tyler to campaign around.

He now needs to begin some research to find out what the situation with homelessness is in his local area.

So it's time for him to carry out that research.

So Tyler decides that it's time to collect some local facts and figures.

Tyler emails his local council to ask for help with information regarding homelessness.

In their reply, Tyler receives a range of information regarding homelessness in their area.

This includes the local policy.

So the council have written a local policy on homelessness.

Local charities that support rough sleepers.

So there is already some organisations that support rough sleepers.

And where to find the figures on the numbers of people who sleep rough.

So there is actually a record of how many people sleep rough in each area.

So Tyler's already got quite a lot of information to start on.

Time for task three, everybody.

Time for you to pause the video to complete your task.

Look at the list of information the local council sent Tyler.

What type of research does this provide Tyler with? Resume the video once you finished.

If you need some support with this, please stay with me.

And we'll just do a little recap.

Primary research is information you'd gather for yourself about your topic.

It can come from a range of sources, including interviews, surveys, polls, observations and votes.

Secondary research is made by somebody else, but helps your investigation.

This could come from government reports, newspapers, videos, reports from non-governmental organisations.

So the question here is whether or not Tyler was given primary research or secondary reason.

So here's some feedback for you on task three.

Tyler will be using secondary research here.

The number of rough sleepers are produced by the government, not by Tyler.

Information from the local policy will be helpful, but it was not researched or gathered by Tyler.

So Tyler himself is using information that is very, very relevant to his topic, but actually it wasn't generated or gathered by him.

So we refer to that as our secondary research.

What are Tyler's next steps then? Tyler now has to find out more about the services that exist in his area for rough sleepers.

He wonders if there's something he can do to support your organisations that work in his area already, or if he can raise awareness around any campaigns or needs they have.

Tyler spends some more time exploring these organisations and looking at local social media and newspapers to see if he can get any information.

Task four, everybody.

Let's get ready.

It's important that time to demonstrate the skills that examiners are looking for as he is completing this for his GCSE Citizenship Studies.

Look at the list and explain how Tyler has shown any of the skills so far.

So remember the skills we're focusing on at the moment are research and enquiry, interpretation of evidence, planning and collaboration.

So thinking about what Tyler has done so far, can you write a sentence that would explain any of those skills that he's used and how he's used them.

Pause the video now and complete this task.

Well done, everybody.

Expect you found that quite straightforward.

Task four feedback then.

Tyler has shown that he has a number of skills of research enquiry.

As he has been able to contact the local authority and gain further information about his topic.

He has developed this skill by investigating the organisations and websites he was given in more detail.

Tyler has also gone on to interpret the evidence he has researched in order to decide how he could support organisations and the rough sleepers.

When he read the policy, he could see that the figures this year and the figures for last year.

The figures for this year were higher than last year.

Therefore Tyler interpreted the evidence that rough sleeping in the town had increased.

So this idea of interpretation is quite important because it's how you read and make use of information that you gather.

It's not just about taking the information and copying it out, but it's about using it to help you with your own project.

So what are Tyler's next steps? Tyler's teacher asked the class to present their ideas and research so far.

This is a really nice activity actually, because it means everybody in your group or your class gets to hear about all the other ideas that interest everyone.

And you might find out people are interested in the same topic as you.

Afterwards, the class needs to form action groups to plan that Active Citizenship project.

Three other students were keen to work on the same projects as Tyler.

So they decided to form the action group or rough sleeping in their own town.

So those three students were Shabana, Alia and Sophia.

So Tyler is now part of an action group.

And all four of them are working on the topic of homelessness in their local town.

It is now time for the team to develop a research question based on that topic and find out what other people's views are on rough sleeping.

Once they have researched this, they can start to consider which actions would be most successful.

The team then considered how they could carry out that primary research.

So we remember that primary research is all about information that you yourself gather.

It's not taking information from other people but it's generating the information yourself.

So have a look at these images for me and see if you can write a list of different ways you can carry out primary research.

So there should be some big hints on there of how when you're conducting your Active Citizenship Project, you can go find the views of other people.

So pause the video now and just carry out that task.

So what did you work out from the images to help you? So remember, this is primary research.

It's what you carry out for yourself.

Well, one way to do it would be face-to-face interviews.

So you could talk to people about what they've used are.

You could carry out an interview or you could speak to people over the phone.

You could use an internet app like Zoom or Teams and carry out a interview, or indeed what we call a focus group where you get a few people together at the same time and ask them questions and they feed back on that.

You could use an electronic survey like Google forms, and then people respond and you get that back and you can analyse the information.

Recording a video for people to respond to.

So you could make a little video talking about your topic and then ask people to send in their views back to you.

These are just some of the ideas how you can carry out your research.

And there's a worksheet that comes with this lesson to help you with your own action projects.

So if you're needing some more ideas about how to carry out your research, then please go to the worksheet attached to this lesson and it will give you some more.

So, now it's time to think about how to carry out an action plan.

So more of our planning.

And planning, as I said, is a really big part of the project, but it's actually the bit that's going to make sure you are successful.

So it's really important that you do spend a good amount of time planning.

So an important part of your action project is to plan carefully.

Your research should help you plan the activity you're going complete.

Having a clear action plan will make sure everybody in the team knows what they have to do.

Tyler and his team have started to meet that action plan.

It's important that they consider all the steps they need to take, the time they have available, and who will be the best at each job.

Now I've told you before that I've been teaching for quite a long time, and I've seen some fantastic action projects, but the biggest problem people in my experience, hit is not allowing themselves enough time or planning a project that takes more time than they have.

So really important part of that action planning is to make sure that you set yourselves sensible time deadlines.

So it's time to start planning their research carefully and the team have allowed themselves two weeks to investigate the questions.

What more can be done to support the rough sleepers of our town? So they're going to use their primary research skills and their secondary research skills to investigate this question.

What's more can be done to support the rough sleepers of our town? And in our next lesson, we're going to find out how they getting on.

And how that impacts on their further planning.

So we've come to the end of today's lesson.

Well done everybody.

I'm sure you've now got lots of ideas about how you can carry out your research and where you can go for that.

A little bit of takeaway tasks for you to keep you getting and keep your projects on track.

Identify three secondary sources of information that relates to your choice of topic.

Start to consider if they are reliable and accurate.

So big part of doing your research is the question, do they give the whole picture? Do we really trust them? Have they been written by somebody who supports this campaign or is it against this campaign? So that's a really important thing to consider.

What are the information might you need for your project? And who could we to about that? So it's a good idea to start gathering this information, keep it all together if you can.

And then you can work through it as a team.

Start to identify who you could talk to and what method you could use to collect your primary research around your topic.

So start to narrow down the people that you think will be helpful for your project.

Can you get access to people that are going to have different views about the topic that you've called for? Because it's really important that you're able to demonstrate, you've listened to different people's views across this research.

It wouldn't be a very good action project if you only heard from people that thought your idea was wonderful or if you only heard from people that thought your idea was rubbish.

So make sure you keep a balance in the people that you speak to.

So, well done everybody.

I'm hoping that your ideas for your planning and moving everything along are coming together nicely.

And you're really excited about trying to get your action projects working.

So here we are at the end of another lesson and I would welcome seeing your work and your plans.

And I certainly know that your teachers back at school would as well.

So ask a parent or a carer to photograph your work and send it in and you can send it to @oaknational at Twitter and #learnwithOak.

And then now get an opportunity to see all those brilliant research ideas that you had.

And perhaps the result of some of your research.

And don't forget as well when you're carrying out research, if you're able as an adult is able to help you, social media can be quite helpful with carrying out research.

So your teacher might be able to help you with that as well.

That's just another option for you.

So it's been a great lesson again.

Thank you very much for staying with me.

I hope you've got lots of ideas there.

Just one final task before you leave.

And you will know what it is by now, I'm sure.

Time to complete your exit quiz, please.

So do find your exit quiz so you can demonstrate how much you've learned from today's lesson and just consolidate what we've been learning.

Make sure you know the difference between primary and secondary research and all of those things that we've talked about.

So until I see you next lesson, and we look at what action planning is and what the action group on heinousness had been up to.

I say goodbye to you now and take very good care of yourself.

Bye-bye.