Lesson video

Hello, and welcome to our lesson today.

My name is Mr. Miskell and I'll be your citizenship teacher for our lesson.

Now before we get started, it's really important that you've got a quiet space so that you can participate in our lesson today.

And also that you've got a pen, as well as a sheet of paper.

Now if you don't have any of those things, now is a good time to pause the lesson and make sure you've got those things and that you're in a quiet space.

If you have, you can get started with our lesson right away.

Now today's lesson is an exciting lesson.

It's part of a wider unit of work where we're looking and trying to consider how COVID-19 as a pandemic has affected our rights.

And what we'll be investigating today is particularly about whether our right to health is protected.

Now in order to do that, we are going to have a little look at an example of a person.

We're going to try and personalise it to someone called Zac.

We're going to be trying to consider whether Zac's right to health is protected.

Now towards the end of our lesson, we're going to go back to Zac and we're going to try and use some of the knowledge that we've developed to be able to answer that question about whether Zac's right to health is actually protected.

Now in order to go about doing that, we are going to go through a series of steps in our lesson.

Now the overall question that we're trying to ask in this lesson is, is our right to health protected? And we're going to personalise it in terms of Zac, and go back to that at the end of the lesson.

What we're going to start off by doing is we're going to recap something called the Convention of the Rights of the Child, which is a United Nations document.

Now that's covered in previous lessons, as part of this unit of work.

And you can have a look over those previous lessons about the Convention of the Rights of the Child to get more information about it.

But we will kind of just cover the basics to bring you up to speed about it.

We're then going to have a little look at the right to health, and three different particular parts to the right to health.

And the first one is the right healthcare.

We're going to be talking about the right to healthcare in the UK, but also around the world.

And we're going to use the United States as an example.

Then we're going to have a little look at information to help you stay healthy.

And we're going to have a look at false information during the COVID-19 pandemic, and why that can be a particular problem.

False information that's shared, particularly on social media, about health risks in COVID-19.

So we're going to have a little look at information to help you stay healthy.

And the last thing we're going to look at is the question of whether rich countries should have to help poorer countries.

And that's specifically mentioned in the Convention on the Rights of the Child.

And we're going to go into much more detail about how richer countries, like the United Kingdom, can go about helping poor countries in terms of allowing young people to get their right to health and the right to healthcare as well.

So they're the things that we're going to be covering as part of today's exciting lesson.

Now what I'm going to do is I'm going to introduce you to the Convention on the Rights of the Child.

Now the Convention on Rights of the Child is a United Nations document.

And it has 42 rights that are protected for young people.

And each one of those rights is called an article.

So say for example, article 7.

Article 7 says you have the right to have a name and nationality.

Something that every one of us takes for granted but for many young people around the world, that right is a particular struggle.

Article 23 says that if you're disabled, you have the right to special care and to education.

And in the United Kingdom, like many countries around the world, that means that there are specific schools where people can get extra support if they have profound educational difficulties.

Or it means that in more mainstream schools, that specific help has to be provided for young people with special educational needs and disabilities.

And the article that we're really going to be focusing in on today is article 24, and that is that we have the right to health or the right to healthcare.

And we're going to be going through that in significantly more detail.

Now when we think about article 24, I've shared with you only a small bit of it.

But in a kind of an extended form, then this is what article 24 says.

And this is helpfully put together by Save the Children for us, in order to give us a better understanding of what article 24 of the Convention on the Rights of the Child actually means.

Now it says you have the right to healthcare when you're sick, to healthy food, clean water, a clean environment and information to help you stay healthy.

And that rich countries should help poorer countries to do this.

Now the bits that are underlined are not necessarily the most important, but they're the ones that we are going to be focusing in on today.

And there are really going to be three specific parts of article 24 that we're going to go and look at in more detail.

And those three different parts to article 24, as part of our investigation into this issue, are going to be the right healthcare.

That's the first thing that we're going to look at.

So number one, the right to healthcare is what we're going to look at.

Number two, we're going to have a little look at information to help you stay healthy.

So that's a particular part of article 24, whether you've got the information to help you make healthy choices about your own life, to stay healthy.

Particularly important when we talk about the context of a global health emergency, like COVID-19.

And the last thing that we're going to look at, number three, is about rich countries.

And it says rich countries should help poorer countries to do this.

So are rich countries helping poorer countries in order that young people get their right to health? And that's three different things that we're going to be looking at today.

Now the first thing, the first one of those that we're going to look at in more detail, is the right to healthcare.

So the right to healthcare is the one that we're going to spend a little bit of time looking at now.

Now, this is a picture that you may well have seen over the recent months.

And we've seen these rainbows popping up around the country, in people's windows.

With little children kind of drawing them and putting them up in their windows.

And perhaps you've even done that yourself.

We've even seen them on advertising billboards and big companies putting up those sorts of rainbows.

Now rainbows are often a sign of hope, like in the biblical story of kind of Noah's Ark.

But they're also used throughout different contexts as well.

For example, the LGBT+ community use a rainbow to represent the diversity of their community.

Now here, this rainbow is showing support for the NHS and for our key workers during the COVID 19 pandemic.

But the National Health Service that many of those healthcare workers work in, is often something that we take for granted in this country.

But it's a key part of how we get our right to healthcare in the United Kingdom.

So what we're going to now do is we're going to find out about the NHS and where it comes from historically.

I'd like you to watch the next clip really intently because we've got a bit of a task after it that you guys can be having a go at.

So watch this clip really intently.

They could not believe that they didn't have to pay any money.

Because the Northeast, there was a lot of unemployment straight after the war, and we were still in rationing then.

And they could not believe that if they had something wrong, they could actually go to the hospital or the doctor, and they wouldn't have to pay any money.

You know, a home delivery.

If it was the 4th of July, was one in six months.

But if it was born on the fifth, it wasn't anything.

And that one in six months after the war, bought a loaf of bread to feed the rest of the family and a tub of margarine.

That's the reality of what we take for granted now.

Well, with our patients I noticed how desperately poor the people were after the war.

They were really, really poor and they could not afford the health insurance they had.

I know it was only a penny a week, but even that was hard.

So therefore we were handed these little infants, all these infants who were well advanced in their bronchitis or their pneumonia.

The difference being, that the parents were more relaxed.

They didn't have to pay.

So they brought their children and their families when they were just starting their problems. I think after NHS came in, well things were happening all the time.

I mean when I first went in, there wasn't a drug lower blood pressure at all.

So it really was nursing, the best you could do in your nursing.

And I think that was a great difference once the NHS came in.

England sent this quota to Grenada, asking for nurses to come in to help them out in their workforce in the NHS, in the nursing.

So I took the advantage of that.

I applied, I was interviewed in my country in Grenada.

I passed my interview.

Papers came up to England and England accepted me, and wrote back to me and tell me they will have me.

In October, then my training will start.

Hence, my presence in England from 1966.

And I never regretted it.

I love the profession.

I really enjoyed it.

And I didn't want to retire.

It's still a wonderful profession for people to come into and get such satisfaction from being there.

For doing what they do to me and what I've seen them doing during my career.

I've mean, the improvements that have gone along in this.

The possibility of being part of those improvements, it's such a challenge and a wonderful aspiration for people.

To my mind, a wonderful organisation.

The best job in the world.

So well done for watching that short clip so intently.

In it, we learned a little bit more about the history and the foundations of the National Health Service.

A really important institution that many of us take for granted, but it's so important in terms of young people and adults as well, getting their right to health or healthcare.

Now in front of you, on your screen, you'll notice that are some sentences.

And they're sentences with gaps.

And what I would like you to do is to try and complete the sentences by choosing the correct words.

Now the words that you've got to fit in there somehow are free, two, 1948, national, significant, people, NHS and dramatically.

So what you now need to do is make sure that you have got a pen and make sure that you've got a piece of paper.

You need to pause our lesson when you are ready and you need to try and have a go and see whether you can work out, which words fit into the sentence at the correct space there? So pause the lesson now and I'll make it full screen so that you can see it even more clearly.

Best of luck! So well done for having a go at that task.

What I'm now going to do is give a little bit of feedback about the correct answers.

Now I'm going to read the whole passage out for you, so that you can work out whether you got the answers correct.

But of course, you can also see them on the screen in front of you.

So after World War II, Britain changed dramatically and so did the lives of its people.

One of the most significant developments was a new National Health Service, or NHS, which began in 1948.

It meant for the first time, anyone who was ill could be treated for free and that the health of the nation changed dramatically.

Well done there for giving that a go and trying your very best with it.

Now when we think about the National Health Service in the United Kingdom and what healthcare looks like in the UK, we've got to remember that it's not universal.

In a sense, that around the world, they've got very different healthcare systems. And that means that sometimes, people may struggle in some countries to be able to access the right to health care.

Something that we may well take for granted.

So in the United Kingdom, on the left-hand side of your screen, you'll notice that we have the National Health Service.

Now it's provided free of charge and it's paid for by taxation.

And we think about taxation as being something that our parents pay, and they may well do through things like income tax.

But of course, you pay taxation through VAT when you buy something that's not a luxury from a shop.

And at the moment, the rate of VAT is 20%.

And now children, so you guys, get free dental and eyecare.

For people like me, I have to pay a small amount in order to gain access to dental treatment and eyecare.

But I still don't pay the full costs of that.

And also, prescriptions are free for children as well.

So that's part of the National Health Service.

And the National Health Service is something that is mirrored in many other different countries.

And different countries in Europe as well, have similar sorts of models as well that are quite like the National Health Service.

Now if we look on the other side of our screen, then what you'll notice is about the United States.

And we're thinking about comparing healthcare in the UK with the United States.

Now in the United States, then healthcare is not free of charge.

And many families have health insurance policies.

They may come with people's jobs or they may have to pay privately for those health insurance policies.

And that means that it's a particular problem if your parents are not hugely well-off or perhaps they're unemployed.

And in those circumstances, children from less wealthy families are provided with some health care by the government.

So by sharing this little table with you, I want you to get your head around the idea that the right to healthcare is something that every young person has around the world.

But the reality of it on the ground in different countries often looks very, very different.

In the United Kingdom, for example, we have a National Health Service that's paid for by or through taxation.

Which means that you get free health care, free at the point of need.

Whereas in other countries around the world, it is very different.

So for example, in the United States often it's a health insurance scheme that parents have to pay into to get healthcare for their children.

Or if they're very, very poor, they may get some support from the government to provide that sort of healthcare.

So it looks different around the world.

Now the second part of things to do with our right to health is about information to help you stay healthy.

And we're going to look into this in a little more detail, to work out whether our right to health is protected.

to work out whether our right to health is protected.

And as part of that, whether your right to information to help you stay healthy is also protected.

Now what I'm going to do is I'm going to share with you something that's actually a little bit worrying really.

I'm going to make it big or full screen so that you can see it in much more detail.

And it might be something that you may well have seen at the start of this global pandemic.

It's an example of false information on COVID-19, on social media.

In fact, this piece of information was shared on Facebook and it was doing the rounds on social media.

And it was shared hundreds of thousands of times.

Now if you look, in a lot of detail into the graphic that's in front of you, we know that this is false.

And we put something over the top of it to make clear that it's false, that it wasn't there when it was shared.

But it says that if you have Coronavirus, you can gargle with warm water, salt and vinegar, and that it eliminates the virus.

Now let me just make clear and I think you know this already, we know that that's wrong.

But it really is an example of the crucial role that good, quality information has in order to make us stay healthy.

Now this information is problematic because actually, if we followed this information, then actually we wouldn't be staying healthy at all, would we? Now what I'd like you to do, is I would like you to think about a particular part of that graphic there.

And I'd like you to think about why false information about COVID-19 might well be harmful.

Now thinking back to the graphic that I shared with you, I want you to use your hands and I'd like you to get a sheet of paper and a pen.

Now once you've got a sheet of paper and a pen, I'd like you to draw around your hands like this.

And I'd like you, in four fingers and one thumb, to think about five reasons why incorrect information about COVID-19 is particularly harmful during a pandemic.

about COVID-19 is particularly harmful during a pandemic.

So you're thinking about reason one, reason two, reason three, reason four, reason five.

Now don't worry, you might have more than five different things that you want to write there.

You can put those in the middle of your hand, if you wanted to, you could write them into there.

So good luck with this task.

And if you want to have a rewind to see the graphic that we're talking about in the lesson, then feel free to do that as well.

I'll just make it full screen now so that you can look into it in even more detail and understand the instructions.

So well done for giving that task your best try and no doubt, you've got some absolutely amazing answers there that you can share.

Now I'm just going to run you through a number of things that struck me when I was looking into that graphic and thinking about how worrying it is in terms of COVID-19.

And why it's dangerous for that information to be shared.

Now I would say the first thing is that it may confuse people.

It's really confusing to have information like that.

And it's a particular problem because actually, it might mean that people make unhealthy and unsafe choices.

Now normally, that's a worry anyway.

But during COVID-19, that's a particular worry about them making unsafe choices because it affects them and the wider community.

I shared that they may not follow proper health advice from the National Health Service if they're following incorrect information that's shared with people on social media.

It might be that they could tell other people that incorrect information and spread it even further, that incorrect information.

It might mean that more people could be infected and therefore, get ill.

And lastly, it can make the pandemic even worse as well because people are following that information, that incorrect information, instead of following proper health advice from things like the National Health Service.

I'm going to make this much bigger.

Feel free to jot down some of those different ideas onto your own hands, if you are struggling with this particular task.

And you can pause the video and class now, if you want to look at that in even more detail.

So when we think about false information, like the graphic that was shared about COVID-19 on social media by hundreds of thousands of people.

It's really important that citizens have good information to be able to make correct decisions about their lives.

And we're going to come back to some of these sorts of skills, some of these media literacy skills that I'm going to introduce you to in a second, in future lessons.

Now media literacy skills help us to understand whether information is accurate in relation to health.

Now the slide that's in front of you gives you a bit of an idea on some of these key terms that we'll revisit in future lessons.

And they're actually adapted from some definitions from the Council of Europe.

But I'm going to share with you three different definitions.

And we'll see if we can work out whether that graphic that was shared on social media falls into one or maybe more of these categories.

Now the first one is disinformation.

And disinformation is information which is deliberately created to harm a person, group or organisation.

Misinformation on the other hand, is information that is shared without knowing that it is false.

It might not be created to cause harm.

And mal-information is something that's very different.

This is truthful information, which is shared to deliberately harm a person or group.

Now we will revisit these in future lessons.

But I'm just going to make this bigger on your screen now, so you can try and have a little bit of a look and work out which particular category the graphic from social media, the false graphic from social media, about COVID-19 falls into.

So have a little think about it now.

So I guess the answer to this is that it's probably an example of disinformation.

But really, that depends on the author's intent or intention.

So whoever really created it.

And what I mean by that is whether they intended to create harm by giving out false information.

So if they did intend to create harm to individuals by spreading that false information, then it's an example of disinformation, isn't it? But it probably also falls into the category of misinformation.

And this is where it's shared and reposted unintentionally from person to person, without really the intent to cause harm.

So someone sees it on social media and thinks it might be helpful to other people, and they just repost it.

They've perhaps not got any intent to cause people harm, but it is misinformation that does inadvertently cause harm for other people because people have unknowingly passed on that information on social media.

So these media literacy skills help us to understand whether information is accurate.

And it helps us to make better choices about our health, as well as lots of other decisions in our lives.

And we'll come back to some of these media literacy skills in future lessons.

Now in front of you, what you'll notice is a leaflet.

Now this is a leaflet or the front cover of a leaflet from the Children's Commissioner's Office.

And it's the Children's Commissioner for England.

And it's a guide that they created on coronavirus.

And I'm showing you this because what we've just seen really in that graphic from social media, that false graphic from social media, is an example of how important it is to check the sources of information and to find reliable sources.

And this is an example of a reliable source.

It's from a part of government, albeit an independent part of government.

And it's the Office of the Children's Commissioner.

And that's a place that we can find information that is accurate about our rights, but also about COVID-19 that's worrying many young people at the moment.

Now government have a responsibility to make sure that we have the correct information that we need to stay healthy.

And that involves education and giving you the tools to be able to spot misinformation, disinformation and mal-information.

And that's what we spend an awful lot of time looking at in citizenship lessons, giving you the sorts of tools to be able to spot some of these sorts of things and play a full part in democracy and access things in a safe manner.

Now the last part of our lesson today is really about the third part of our right to health.

This part of the Convention on the Rights of the Child, and the third part is about whether rich countries should help poorer countries.

Now Convention on the Rights of the Child says that rich countries should help poorer countries, to make sure that children in those poorer countries get access to their health.

Now clearly, that can be a bit of a problem in many different parts of the world.

And we're going to have a little look and work out whether this actually happens, and how richer countries can help poorer countries with regards to this.

Now I'm going to share with you an article.

Now it mentions UK aid, and aid is money that goes from one country or organisation to support perhaps a poorer or more developing country in another part of the world.

And this aid comes from the UK government and actually comes from a department within the UK government that is soon to merge with actually the Foreign Office, and it's called the Department for International Development.

So we do know that richer countries have a responsibility, under Convention on the Rights of the Child, to help poorer countries in terms of guaranteeing that young people get their right to health and their right to healthcare.

Now our country, like many other countries around the world, does that partly through international aid.

And here we can see that the UK government's talking about giving 744 million pounds to help hold the global pandemic of COVID-19.

Of course, we know that many people also donate money to charities, and that's also spent on aid as well.

And there are many organisations around Britain and around the world that go out and do things in the developing world as well.

And we can see that actually, this slide in front of us shows us the graph of aid spending from the 1960's onwards.

And I'll just make it a little bit bigger so that you can see it in much more detail.

Now for the purpose of this graph, and the graph is from the House of Commons Library.

We talked about the importance of looking at sources here, this is a reputable source.

And it's a great source actually for you to find more information out, the House of Commons Library.

You can view that on the web.

Aid, for the purposes of this graph, is sometimes referred to as official development assistance or OAD.

So this is the money that goes to help different projects in poorer countries in the developing world.

Now global spending on aid has tended to increase over the past few decades.

Now in real terms, and that means that obviously, inflation means that the amount of money spent one year inflation means that the amount of money spent one year might not necessarily be comparable to the amount of money spent in another year.

But in real terms, we're seeing here that actually spending on aid is nearly five times as high now, globally, than it was in the 1960's.

So we know that actually there is a huge amount of spending on overseas aid going to developing countries around the world.

Now this doesn't mean to say that it's all being spent on the right to health or the right to healthcare.

But we can imagine that some of that, or a large proportion of that, may well be spent on the right to health.

And we do know that richer countries have a responsibility to help poorer countries when it comes to providing for healthcare and the right to health.

Now, I want to take us back to the very start of our lesson.

And at the very start of our lesson, I introduced you to Zac.

And I asked you to consider whether Zac's right to health is protected.

And I want you to think back to our whole lesson in its totality, really here.

And I'd like you to try and answer the questions below to help you demonstrate your knowledge from today's lesson.

Now to do that, you are going to need a pen and a sheet of paper to do that.

And after I've introduced you to all these four different questions, I'd like you to pause the lesson and a have a go.

And at the end of it, I'll give a bit of a feedback and share with you a model answer as well to those four different questions.

So let me just make this a little bit bigger on your screen now and we'll read through it together.

So question one says, what does the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, which is shortened to UNCRC, say about the right to health? Question two says, what free services would give Zac his right to healthcare in the UK, and how may this be different abroad? E.

g.

in the United States.

You remember, we looked at the United States earlier on in our lesson.

And if you want to recap that, you can rewind our lesson and have a little look over it again.

Question three says, why is the right information so important to help protect Zac's health? And remember, we had a little look at some of that false information that was shared on social media about COVID-19.

And we considered how that can be particularly dangerous for people's health, and also the population's health.

And lastly, question four says, if Zac lived in a poorer country, in what ways could richer countries support his right to health? So now I want you to make sure that you've got a pen and a sheet of paper, and I'd like you to pause the video.

Pause our lesson and see if you can have a go at answering this question, or these four questions, in order to think about Zac's right to health and how it might be protected.

Best of luck! Congratulations on giving that task a go and trying your very best.

Now what I'm going to do is I'm going to share with you some answers here.

Now no doubt, you've got some wonderful answers as well.

But feel free to add to your answer if there's anything that you are missing out.

Now the question one was, what does the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child say about the right to health? Well we know that article 24 of the UNCRC, and that means the Convention on the Rights of the Child from the United Nations, says that you have the right to healthcare.

Which includes healthy, good and clean water, information to help you stay healthy.

And that richer countries have a responsibility to help poorer countries.

Now question two asked you to consider, what free services would give Zac his right to healthcare in the UK, and how might this be different abroad? And the hint here was about the United States because in our lesson earlier, we had a little look about the United States and about the right to healthcare there.

And the answer that I'm going to share with you is, in the UK, Zac's actually right to healthcare is protected by free access to the National Health Service or NHS.

Which means that he gets to see a doctor without having to pay for it, this is paid for through taxation.

In the USA, this is different as families have to purchase insurance and healthcare is not free of charge to most people.

Now what I'm going to do is I'm going to make this full screen, so that you can take the opportunity to pause the video and to add to your answer, if there's anything that you are missing out.

Now the next thing I'm going to share with you is an answer, or a model answer to questions three and four.

Now question three said, why is the right to information so important to help protect Zac's health? Now the answer here says, the right information is important to help Zac protect his health.

Accurate information helps him to make informed choices about his own health and how to protect those around him, especially during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Question four says, if Zac lived in a poorer country, in what ways could rich countries support his right to health? Now the answer says, if Zac lived in a poorer country, international aid from richer countries could help support healthcare services and therefore protect his right to health.

So there are four different questions and some model answers from all of those four there.

I will just make it big so that you can zoom in now if there's anything from questions three and four, in terms of the feedback, that you'd like to add to your own particular question.

Now in our lesson today, we've looked at the right to health and whether it's protected and we personalised it with Zac there.

We were thinking about whether Zac's right to health is protected.

In order to do that, we were considering about the Convention on the Rights of the Child And we're thinking about the Convention on the Rights of the Child and how this impacts young people.

And as part of that, we were looking at three different parts of the right to health.

We were looking at the right to healthcare.

We were looking about information to help us stay healthy.

And we were also considering the last thing about whether rich countries help poorer countries, in order to allow young people to be able to gain access to their right to health.

Now I hope you've enjoyed our lesson today, because it's been a really interesting lesson about your rights during COVID-19, this global health emergency.

So thanks so much for taking part in our lesson and have a good day, bye-bye!.