Lesson video

Hello, everybody, and welcome to another lesson on how we can make a difference in society.

I'm Mrs. Baker, and I'm here to take you through the lesson today.

Hopefully, by now, you know the drill.

Try and find somewhere nice and quiet to work, no distractions, a space of your own, if you can.

If you're not using your phone to watch the lesson on, then please put it on silent or turn it off so that's not a distraction to you.

If you are using your phones, probably a good idea to tell your notifications off so you don't get disturbed during our lesson.

I will meet you in just a moment to you tell me what we need for today's lesson.

Also recommend that if you have got your notes from the previous lessons in this unit, then you keep them to hand because we are building up a pack of work that you can use to help you plan your active citizenship projects.

So you might like to look back through the notes that you've made already and that will help you as you move on in today's lesson.

Although it's not vital.

If you haven't got them with you, won't make a massive difference, but it can just be helpful to keep everything together.

Okay? I'll just see you in just a moment then.

Welcome back, everybody.

And here we are at lesson four for this unit, all about how we can make a difference in society and preparing for our GCSE active citizenship projects.

For today's lesson then, as always, our brains need to be really active.

And day's lesson is obviously, like the others, going to be all about what you want to do for your active citizenship topic.

I can't give you all the answers.

You need to have those ideas, and then use what we discuss when you're planning your own project.

And today's lesson is going to be about how you do that planning.

So it's a really important one.

So make sure you've got lots of ideas ready.

To help you with today's lesson, you'll need something to write with and something to write on, some colours like highlighters or something might help you, but they're not essential, and the notes that you've had from other lessons, also could be really helpful here, but again, if you haven't got them to hand, it's fine.

You can add to them later after the lesson.

If you haven't got any of those things with you, and you want to go off and find them, then please pause your video now, so you can do.

Those of us that are ready, let's get ready to go.

So overall, what we're going to be aiming to achieve by the end of the day then, will be to assess what skills you've looked at so far.

Remember, it's constantly about learning new skills and reinforcing your skills.

So we'll keep looking at that, and you'll be making assessments of those skills for yourself.

We're going to see, well, how do we actually work out what needs to be done for these action projects that you'll carry it out? How do we use our research to help us plan? Because by now you've got some good ideas about researching, or perhaps you've even done some of your research, that primary research and secondary research that we were talking about already.

What targets should you set or should we set for our action? So it's really important to have those aims and targets.

So you know by the end what you want to achieve.

And that also means you can judge how successful you've been, something else that's very important.

And then how do you write an action plan? So an action plan is a working document that you'll keep using all the way through your action citizenship projects.

And we're going to talk today about how you can develop and write your own.

So first task, nice and quick and easy for you.

Let's have a review of the work that you've done so far.

I'd like to explain it, like you to explain in a sentence, any of the skills that you've used so far.

How have you used them in your planning or thinking up your topic ideas, researching your topic ideas.

Maybe you've already formed an action group or found some people that want to work with you.

So perhaps you can talk about that.

So quick task, shouldn't take too long.

It's all about what you've done yourselves.

So I can't tell you whether you got this right or wrong, but hopefully you're going to have some really good examples of how your skills in citizenship are really developing.

So pause your video now and complete this task.

Okay.

Well done, everyone.

Hopefully, you've come up with a nice range of tasks.

There's some good examples there.

What I'm going to do is talk to you about Tyler and his group.

You may remember that they are looking at homelessness for their action projects, and they're quite recently formed group from their class.

And these are the skills that they have used so far.

So hopefully in your work, you've got something similar to this.

So they've used collaboration by agreeing to work together on the same project.

And they've also shared out roles in terms of things they're expected to do to work towards getting this project up and running.

They've researched their topic using both primary and secondary sources, and there's a development of inquiry based on their topic to investigate.

They've used skills of interpretation to understand the evidence they have found as well.

So quite a few of the skills they've already used, and there's still plenty of time to develop and refine these as they go.

Just as there's still time for you guys to develop and refine yours.

Okay.

Straight on to task two.

No stopping today.

Lots to do.

Thinking about the topic you have chosen.

So again, anything that you have decided is of interest to you, it meets your specification.

If you're doing the GCSE in citizenship studies, if you're doing this because it's not a GCSE, but it's part of your curriculum, then you've got a little bit more freedom, but I expect it will fit into those main areas that we've talked about before.

That of their rights, law and injustice, Britain and the wider world, politics, government, and democracy.

So you'll be able to fit most of your projects around those key themes.

I'd like you to write a mind map of all the tasks you think that might need to be completed.

So from start to finish, you can talk about the planning, the taking of action and the evaluating, the big stages that we go through.

What tasks do you think you might have to do? Now at the moment, you might not even realise that you've got to complete some tasks, but for the ones that you are aware of where you think you might have to do, let's get them written down.

So pause the video now and complete this task.

So hopefully you've come up with lots of ideas of things you might need to do in order to get your project up and running and completed successfully.

This is an idea of some of the things that you may have on there.

And if you suddenly look at one of these, and I think, "Actually, that's a good point," you can add it to the mind map that you've created so far.

Please, don't worry about that.

And I'm sure that you have all got many, many more ideas too.

So things that you might have to do are asking permission for the action to take place.

So for example, if you're trying to do something in school, you might have to ask for a teacher's permission or someone in leadership's permission.

If you're going to take children out of class or use up some curriculum time or take over somebody else's lesson, you're going to need permission from that teacher.

You're going to have to maybe think of whether there's any health and safety issues involved in your activities or your ideas.

And if they are, you're going to have to sort of produce maybe something that's called a risk assessment.

And your teachers are very skilled at completing risk assessments.

So they will be able to help you with that.

But basically it's thinking about health and safety issues, what could go wrong and how you could prevent that happening.

So it might be, for example, if you were using a hot water urn, how you would make sure that you stayed safe whilst using that, or things like that.

Writing to people to ask to interview them.

So if you're inclined to set up interviews, there's no point in doing so unless you've asked people to actually come, and you'd need to arrange a date and time.

So all of that detail and planning has to take place before the interview can happen.

Arranging to be allowed out from lessons early to collect visitors.

And also if you're not doing the interviews in your own time and the people can only come when you're in lesson time, then you'd have to arrange to be released from lessons for these things to take place, if that's possible in your schools, and in some schools that won't be possible.

You might just have to organise it so it happens in your citizenship lessons only, and make sure that your visitors can come during those citizenship lessons.

So all of this planning is really important.

So we need to make sure you know the dates and times of lessons that teachers and visitors can meet with you.

And then preparing resources for your campaign would be something else that's really important.

If you're saying that you're going to organise a petition, but then you don't have anything for people to sign, then that's not going to really work.

If you are telling a teacher that you're going to teach a lesson about an organisation you feel passionately about, and you turn up and you haven't got any resources, that probably won't work too well either.

So this idea of being prepared is extremely important.

And then there's always this idea that something could go wrong.

So for example, if one of your team is supposed to be leading a lesson or running an assembly, and they're unwell that day, it happens.

People can't help being poorly.

Then who's going to step in? Have you got a sort of backup plan? Have you got something else you can do in case things go wrong? So it's really important that you think about covering what might happen and having some backup ideas too.

So hopefully that's giving you some ideas that you can add to your mind maps.

I'm sure you've all got a lot already as well.

So it's a really good start to your plan.

So where did we leave our action group on homelessness? Last lesson, we said that Tyler, Shabana, Alia and Zofia were planning their research carefully.

They'd given themselves two weeks to investigate the question.

What more can be done to support the rough sleepers of our town? They went off to do their research, and now we are going to review their research, ready to plan their action.

So while we look at the next few slides, please remember that they're thinking about what more can be done to support the rough sleepers.

So the people they're aiming at is the rough sleepers that live in their town.

And they want to know what more could be done to support them.

All right? Let's see what they found out.

So.

Shabana feeds back her research first.

She's carried out her research online.

She investigated a charity that supports rough sleepers.

She found out that there are a number of provisions to make sure that they have access to food during the week for free.

She also found out that there's a place they can go to get their washing done and have a shower for a small fee.

In the winter, there is a shelter.

So people could spend the night inside when it's very cold.

However, there are only 15 places in the shelter each night.

There is no day centre in the town.

So the rough sleepers are seen a lot.

So that's a summary of Shabana's research that she carried out online.

Alia shares her primary research, she gathered by talking to teachers in school about local rough sleepers.

So Alia carried out this research herself, specifically to answer that question.

Most teachers live locally.

7 out of 10 said they had seen an increase in the number of rough sleepers on the streets.

10 out of 10 said they were concerned that there was a problem locally.

When she asked if they knew how to help rough sleepers, only 4 out of 10 said they knew where people could go for food and help.

Only one knew about an emergency number to report a rough sleeper to to get help.

So Allie has come up with a range of information there, as has Shabana.

Shabana's a secondary research because she used the internet to find out what local charities were doing.

Alia's was primary research because she asked specific questions of her teachers to help find out the views of people about rough sleeping in their town.

And remember, finding out people's views, it's an important element of the GCSE citizenship status qualification, and you have to show the ways in which you've carried that out.

So within your planning, make sure there's a way that you have shown what people think about your issue.

So planning your action then, thinking about what you can do.

I would like you using the information from Alia and Shabana to make a list of the actions the group might want to take on this topic.

So think about what Alia and Shabana have just found out.

How could the group now do something that could help those rough sleepers? Pause the video now and complete the task.

Welcome back, everybody.

So I've drawn a little chart here to help us summarise the kind of things that the group could do.

You may have written your ideas down in a list or something.

It really doesn't matter.

So I've highlighted that from the research, not many people knew about the emergency telephone number to help rough sleepers.

So one possible action that the group could take is run a campaign to promote this.

Because if more people were aware that there's a number you can call to try and get help, then that will be a support to rough sleepers.

Also highlighted the fact that there's no day centre.

So one thing the group could do is lobby the council to allow them rough sleepers in when the weather is bad outside.

So at the moment, the rough sleepers have nowhere to go for shelter if it's raining or if it's snowing or if it's really cold.

So perhaps it's the council's responsibility to find them somewhere to go during the day.

There is the food service for rough sleepers.

So they found out that the rough sleepers can go for a meal every day in the week.

But obviously that was run by a charity.

So perhaps the group could offer to help organising the food service or even help cooking, or they could try and get some more donations to support the charity with this.

Because it's a charity that obviously works from donations from people.

They don't get funded by anybody.

So the more donations they get for food, the more meals that they can cook.

So there were three possible actions that have come out of the research that these two members of the group, Shabana and Alia have carried out.

So moving on to Tyler then.

Tyler researched the data around rough sleepers, homelessness locally and nationally, using government websites and local council information.

He found that once a year, between September and November, there was a count of all the people sleeping outside.

In their town this year, the number was 35.

This had increased from 28 on the previous year.

Tyler is now worried as the winter shelter only has space for 15.

So where would the rest of the rough sleepers go when it got very cold and wet? So here we can see how two pieces of research have really worked together.

The information that was found by Shabana about the winter shelter has worked with the information that Tyler's found about the number of rough sleepers in the town.

And automatically the group have identified that when it comes to the winter shelter, there just won't be enough space for all of the rough sleepers that are sleeping on the streets in their town.

So Zofia was the next to carry out research.

And again, she carried out research for people's views.

She asked her class about their views of rough sleepers and what could be done.

She was quite surprised at the results.

13 out of 25 said they were worried about rough sleepers.

And 7 out of 25 had given money or food to the rough sleepers they had seen in town.

6 out of 25 said they thought it was probably because of something the rough sleeper had done wrong that they did not have a home.

So they did not see a reason to help them.

Two out of 25 told Zofia about a rough sleeper being attacked and having his tent destroyed near where they lived.

So you can see that Zofia managed to get a range of views here by carrying out her research.

She interviewed people by giving them, well she carried out a questionnaire that allowed them to write what they knew.

So that's how she got the information from two students about the rough sleeper being attacked and having their tent destroyed.

So that's quite an effective way to carry out research.

You can hand a questionnaire to a number of people, and then read through the information when you get it back to see how useful it is.

So having read Tyler and Zofia's research, what other action could this group take? Suggest the action you think is the most important and why.

Pause the video now and complete the task.

Welcome back, everybody.

Well done.

So again, I've show my results in a chart form, but you may decide to done it in a different way.

So we're looking at the final lines here, starting off in the purple colour, increasing rough sleepers numbers, too many for the night shelter.

I remember it was Tyler and Zofia's work together that identified that.

Try to fundraise to get more spaces for the night shelter is one possible action that could be carried out there.

Because again, it's the charity that organises the night shelter.

Rough sleepers being attacked, that was brought up by Zofia's information from her class.

Find safe spaces for them to sleep.

Get a shelter for all year round.

And then lastly, people's attitudes to rough sleepers being poor.

So that's the six people that said, "Oh it's probably their own fault." Educate people on the different reasons people end up being homeless.

So if people understood more about homelessness, then hopefully they would understand that it's not always an individual's fault.

Sometimes situations happen and people lose control and end up on the streets.

So for the second part of the task, I asked you to think about which of the actions might be most important.

So a good answer would look something like this.

The most important action based on the research would be to make sure there are more beds in the night shelter.

The reason I think this is most important action is because there are only 15 beds at the moment and there were 38 rough sleepers.

Now an even better way to express the answer would be to say this should also be linked to an education campaign to make sure understand why people become homeless and how they can be supported.

This would stop attacks and also make services, like the free phone number, used more widely.

So showing a connection between two different types of action and how they can work together.

So hopefully your answer looks something like one of these, and if it doesn't, you can see how the answer should look.

So how do we set the question that you're going to be investigating as part of your issue or topic? Let's remember at first that the homelessness team were looking at the question what more could be done to support the rough sleepers of our town.

However, from their research, they know there's quite a lot of support for rough sleepers on a daily basis, but there are some gaps.

Number one is that the night shelter is not big enough.

And number two, there is no day centre for people to go.

So they stay on the streets.

So these are two big gaps in what we would describe as the provision for rough sleepers in their town locally.

The group began to discuss these ideas, and they realise they're very big problems, and they need big solutions.

It's unlikely in the time they have, they will be able to solve these problems. So they start to think again.

And if we just think about that for a moment, that's a very sensible choice the group have made.

Just like you, the group would only have maybe six to eight weeks to complete their action project.

And that's when they're planning to their action, to their evaluation and research.

And if they needed to do something like try and find more beds for the winter shelter or try and establish a day centre, that type of thing can take years, certainly for a day centre.

And it's not appropriate that they'd be able to complete in a matter of weeks.

So this is a very important point when it comes to planning your action.

You may start with one idea and realising you need to change it.

If this does happen, make a note of it as you go through your work.

Problem solving and being adaptable are important skills for this project.

And it's something that you would be able to write about when you're answering your exam questions.

Okay.

Maybe go onto the next task then, everybody.

Explain how Tyler and his group use their research to identify their actions.

Explain why the group decided some ideas they had would not work for their action projects.

So pause the video now and complete the task.

So again, let's have a look at some feedback here.

A good answer would look something like this.

Tyler and his group used their research to identify actions by understanding what people thought and what was already provided for the rough sleepers.

And even better answer would go on to say something like this.

Tyler and his group found their research very helpful for their planning.

By using a range of primary and secondary sources, they were able to identify what was already in their area for rough sleepers, and also find out what local people thought about their topic.

From there, they realised access to food was not a problem, but not enough space at the winter shelter was.

This could be a focus for their action.

So hopefully you can see how the second answer develops the points of the first answer further and explains how the research was used to support the decisions that Tyler and his group made.

Moving on then.

A good answer would look like.

When a group looked at the ideas they had, they realised it was too much work for them to do so they would not be able to complete these actions.

Even better, if you went on to say something like this.

Although Tyler and his group had identified some good ideas by increasing the size of the winter shelter and opening a day centre, they realised this would take more time.

They also would have realised that they would not have the permissions needed to make this happen, or be able to raise, be able to fundraise for that amount of money in a short time.

However, they could adapt that idea and lobby the council to increase the size of the shelter or open a day centre.

So that's one option that Tyler and the group could take.

Rather than trying to open the shelter or a day centre themselves, they could write to the council who have a provision for looking after the homeless and trying to encourage them and their local councillors to increase the size of the winter shelter and offer day centre services for rough sleepers.

So deciding on your action and targets.

It's really important when you organising this project that you have a target, something that you're working towards, because it's nice to know that you succeeded by reaching them.

After your research, you may need to change your research question or modify your original idea.

Once you are happy you have a topic to work with on in the time you have, it's time to set some targets so you know if you are successful at the end.

Targets will help you reflect on your work and show your skill of evaluation.

Tyler's team decided to adjust their action and question from what more can be done to support the rough sleepers of our town to how can we educate people to support rough sleepers in our area.

Now it's time to set some targets so they can see how successful they can be.

So you can see that change of focus in their two questions, can't you? It's gone from supporting the rough sleepers to educating people about rough sleepers.

And the reason Tyler and his team thought about doing this was because actually they realised that the group of people they could get access to most easily weren't necessarily the rough sleepers or the council or the charities, but it was the people that they go to school with.

And they were the people that they could influence most strongly and share ideas with.

So they want to educate people in the hope that more people will support rough sleepers, and in turn, that will lead to their first choice, as well, their first goal, which was to support the rough sleepers.

So, time to set some targets.

The group decided that by the end of their action, they wanted to achieve the following.

Number one, have taught younger students about the reason people become homeless.

Number two, have made more people aware of support there is for rough sleepers in the local area and how they can help.

Number three, have supported the local rough sleeper charity with items they need.

It's now time to turn these aims into targets that can be measured for success.

And this is one really important thing about a target.

You can have a general aim, which is what we've got here in number one, two, and three, but your targets need to be very specific and measurable and normally have a time limit on them.

So you know how long you've got to work for them.

So here we go, setting targets.

And again, I've used a grid format because I think this shows it quite easily.

We've got the aim in one column and the target in the other.

So aim number one was about teaching younger students about homelessness.

So the group has set themselves a target of teaching 100 students in years seven to nine.

So that would be an easy thing to track and to see if you've met, wouldn't it? 100 students, all you would need to do is keep a register of the chosen that you teach, and you'll know whether or not you've met 100 students.

The next target they set themselves is to persuade 50% of the class, so 50% of the people that they teach, to tell somebody else about the issue.

So that's a good figure.

They can work out how they're going to do that, but now they need to think about how they will measure it, how they will know whether somebody else has spread the word and shared the news about the issue.

Aim number two.

To make more people aware of how they can help rough sleepers.

So they've set themselves another target there to increase by 20% the number of people who support rough sleepers in the town.

So not just within their school now, but they're saying they'd like a 20% increase of people in town that help rough sleepers.

Aim three.

To make more people aware of the support available to rough sleepers.

So they say they're going to do that by increasing the number of pupils in our class who know where rough sleepers can go for support by 50%.

So that links back into that education target and aim that they have.

And the last aim.

To support the local rough sleepers clarity with items they need, and their target there is there will be an increase in donations from the school for the local charity.

So they haven't got something that's quite so measurable there, but they have said they're expecting to see an increase.

So the final stage in is to put all of this together and produce a detailed action plan.

An action plan should have all of the tasks that you think you will need to complete during your action.

You should update it regularly, and it can be changed if you need to.

When writing your action plan, you need to think about who has the best skills for each job that needs completing.

So here's an example of an action plan.

Now you could use an action plan that's written like this, or there's lots of other examples that your teacher could probably provide you or you could find one that works for you, but the action plan will list the task that needs to be taken, who is going to carry out those tasks, the date it will be completed by, whether it's been completed or not, and if there were any followup tasks after the first task is completed.

So here in the task column, you can see that there's a range of tasks that needs to be taken or needs to be planned and organised.

And in that list next, you've got who is going to carry those out.

And there's a deadline date for each person.

So because this is a document that is continually used and continually reviewed, after they've first written their action plan, the team go back to it and review it.

So Alia says, "Yep, I wrote to the charity and asked them for a meeting.

Haven't had a reply yet, and if I don't get one by the 19th of November, then I will try and get hold of them again." Tyler says, "Yep, I have written to the head of year seven or emailed the head of year seven, and if he doesn't reply by the sixth, then I am going to go and see him." And Zofia has still got time to complete hers.

So her column is not complete yet.

Okay? So these documents are a copy for everybody, and you keep them updated.

Now with things like Google documents and Microsoft Documents and Microsoft Teams Documents and things like that, you can actually have an electronic one that all of your team could work on as well, if you'd rather do that than have paper copies.

So there's lots of ways that you can set yourself an action plan these days, but the important thing is to make sure that all the tasks that you need to take and who is going to carry them out and when they're going to be completed is included.

Now remember we talk about skills all of the time or there's a reason why Alia, Tyler and Zofia have been selected to carry out these tasks.

So Alia is very good at composing letters.

She's very good at English.

So she volunteered to write the letter or writes to the charity to ask for a meeting.

Tyler has got a brother in year seven.

So he is known to the head of year seven because of his brother.

So he volunteered to go and email the head of year seven to ask about carrying out the survey.

And Zofia is studying sociologically, as well as citizenship.

So she knows how to write a survey because it's part of her course in sociology.

So she's able to construct a really good questionnaire.

So she's using her skills there.

So each person that was allocated a task was allocated it because they had skills.

And that's another really important thing that you make a note of and you're ready to talk about perhaps when it comes to recording your ideas, and in the case of any exam questions.

So we've come to the end of another very busy lesson.

And today it was all about getting our planning.

A little tasks for you to take away and continue working on your active citizenship projects is, using your research, complete your own charts with possible action ideas for your project or topic, and try to complete an action plan for your group.

As I say, you can do those on paper or you may wish to try and do them electronically so you could all work on the same one.

Then you can share your action plan with others in your group.

Do they think you have the best people doing the right actions? So have you found people's skills or do you think perhaps there's a way of getting other people and their skills doing those jobs? And it's always important to discuss who does which tasks, which jobs, because the best people to do them are probably the people that feel most confident.

So please keep a note of all these ideas, keep all your notes in today's lesson and other lessons together.

So you're able to build up a nice stack of information for when you're planning your active citizenship projects.

As I say, we've come to the end of our lesson today.

So I would love for you to be able to share your ideas from today's lesson with your teachers, and absolutely be excited to see anything like your action plans shared with me.

So please ask a parent or carer to take a photograph of those action plans and send them to us via Twitter @OakNational and #LearnwithOak.

It'll be really wonderful to start seeing the kind of activities and projects that are going on out there with you guys for your active citizenship.

Just one last task now before it's time for me to go, And that is for you, as you probably have already guessed to go and find yourself the exit quiz.

Exit quizzes are so important just to consolidate your learning and make sure you understand the main points in the lesson.

So please make sure you do that.

'Cause it gives us a great idea of how much you understand.

And then till I see you next time for the next stage in our active citizenship projects, I'm going to say goodbye, and, you guys, please take care of yourselves.

Bye bye for now, everybody.