Lesson video

Hello, I'm Mrs. Haynes and welcome to my lesson today for citizenship.

Right, let's get started.

Okay, so today is my final lesson regarding the topic of the economy and the title of today's lesson is understanding risk management.

And the key question I'll be looking at is how well have UK governments managed risk over the last 20 years.

So if you want to pause there just for a moment, just to make a note of those two headings, that will be a good idea.

Okay, right let's move on.

So I thought would probably be a good place to start would be just to make sure that we understand what a risk is.

I'm sure you know, so let's just kind of clarify that with each other, okay? So I'd like you to think of three activities that you would class as risky, being risky, okay? And I've put a picture of one there that I would class as being risky that I thought that might sort of help you there.

I've got a picture of some whitewater rafting there.

So what I'd like you to do is I want you to pause and do three things.

I want you to list three activities that you would class as being risky, and then I want you to make a note of what the risk associated with that activity is.

So why do you think it might be dangerous? So for example, for my whitewater rafting there, I might put falling out of the boat or dropping a puddle, hitting your head.

Those might be the risks associated to it.

And then finally, the third thing I'd like you to do is just rank your three suggested risky activities with like, which one you think would be the most, the middle, and then the least risky of those activities, okay? So just pause a moment and do that.

Okay, here's my three activities that I thought of that might be risky.

I decided that my most risky there would become like skydiving.

I've never tried it, but it looks bit scary, probably fun, but it looks it's scary, and then I've put my whitewater rafting in the middle there, and then I've put the one at the bottom there of holding a snake.

Now that picture came from a petting zoo.

So I'm assuming that that snake is completely harmless and it'd be absolutely fine, and therefore, even a child would be in that to hold it.

That's why I've put it last, okay? In case some of you saw that photograph and was a bit like, ooh, that looks kind of scary.

So that's how I've done it.

So far we have identified potential risks from certain activities.

For example, maybe falling out of the sky if you're skydiving, or being bitten potentially by something at the petting zoo.

And you've also rank with them like I have there, okay? Right, so let's move on a little bit now.

So I'd like you to have a go at this for me.

So you're going to pause the video in a moment when you've heard me explain what the task is.

For each of your risky activities.

So the three that you've written down already, I want you to identify the plans that you could put in place to make them less potentially risky, less potentially harmful, okay? It's only going to take you a few moments, this one.

So for example, for my second one there, my whitewater rafting, I probably say something like the plans that I put in place would be, I'd make sure that I have a qualified instructor with us on the boat and make sure that there's some first aid support, perhaps on the shore, wearing a helmet, having a life jacket on, those kinds of things would be the plans that you put in place to make that activity less potentially risky, okay? So just pause for a moment and just sort of add that on to your three things you've already written for me, okay? Right, so governments have to consider risk in exactly the same way that we have just done, as would businesses, schools, even your teachers.

If they're going to take you out on a school trip, they will have to write kind of a risk analysis document to check what could potentially go wrong and how will they avoid that happening? So, risk management is a part of all sorts of different forms of life, okay? But it's just something to be aware of because we are a citizenship course, we want to just kind of focus on, how does that relate to government? And it's a big issue for school.

The government, sorry for government, governments' key responsibility is to ensure the safety of its people.

So risk management is key, okay? So here we have kind of just summing up some of these three key points now for government.

I'm going to read them through, and then I suggestion you make a note of these.

So firstly number one, governments have to identify all the potential risks to their citizens, us.

Governments rank those potential risks according to the level or likelihood of the risk.

This helps them prioritise their attention.

And number three, governments make plans to reduce the possible negative impact of any risks.

Just like we did when writing our plan, okay? So just pause for a moment and make a note of those.

So we're going to go a little bit further now and involve sort of looking at government and risk.

Going to ask you to pause the video in a moment, once I've explained the task.

We're going to complete Diamond 9 activity.

Now I'm sure done these kinds of things in school before, but I'll explain it if this is completely new to you.

I'm anticipating it'll probably take you about eight, eight or so minutes to do this, probably.

You don't need to draw all of the little boxes, just sort of put them in a kind of a pattern.

You'll see what I mean when you see the next slide with me.

So just wait to hear my comments on the next slide, my explanation before you then pause and do your own work, okay? All right, so here's the slide here.

So this is what I mean by a diamond's nine, and you can see the pattern of these boxes here, form the shape of the diamond.

And you can see that at the top I've written high priority and then down the bottom it's written low priority, okay? So what I'm going to ask you to do is I want you to rank the potential risks the UK government could face from high priority to low priority.

And you'll see that in the box there on the side with the white writing, I've listed a whole variety of different risks, things that could happen, okay? Which could potentially put people in danger, okay? Now, if there's any of those that you're not sure about, there is a glossary at the end of the worksheets for any of those words that you are not certain of, okay? While you're doing this for me, I want you to really think about not just the kind of mass impact that that particular thing could have, but I also want you to think about whether it's likely.

You might put something lower down if it could have a huge impact on people, but it's so unlikely, all right? So I want you to think about why you're doing that.

Also while you're looking at this, think about the kind of plans that the government might need to be putting in place in order to prevent the potential risk, okay? So be thinking about that, be mindful of that while you're doing it.

And that might be a way to kind of extend your thinking there.

The plans that governments would put in place often get referred to as mitigation, the things that they would do to prevent someone from being at risk, okay? Mitigation, is a good word to know.

Right, so pause now for a few moments and put those things in the white writing there in that box on the bottom left-hand corner into the diamond nine, okay? Okay, now on the screen now for us is just my suggestion.

It's not the one and the only one that has to be, you may well have for quite different things in yours, and that's absolutely fine.

As long as you can sort of justify why you put different things in different boxes.

You could even when I've done this with my students in class, they've ended up with more of a sort of an upside down triangle rather than a diamond.

So there are quite a few things along the top as being of high priority and just maybe only one or two down the bottom.

So move them around.

So as long as you can explain it and justify your answer, then that's absolutely fine.

So let's look at mine here.

You might be surprised to see that I put invasion quite low down.

That's a perfect example of something that would affect perhaps a lot of people, but it's highly unlikely.

So I've put that quite low down on my sort of low priority for the government to try and plan for.

I was thinking about the fact that there might be quite a bit of unrest heading our way regarding things like sort of trade deals with European Union.

We've seen the kind of Black Lives Matters campaign recently, which has brought some unhappiness.

There's been clashes between far-right extremists and the police, and also we're facing the very possible experience of an economic recession.

Therefore, I thought I would go with the mass protests in major cities as a kind of a high priority, something the government needs to kind of address.

And again, because the government's main purpose is to ensure that we are safe, I was thinking that the things that they would perhaps need to do the things like making sure there was barriers on the edges of any bridges or rivers to make sure that if there's lots of people in one space, nobody falls into something that could danger them or perhaps making sure that the roads had barriers and things on, to ensure nobody was going anywhere near moving traffic.

Again, just thinking about the safety that the government would perhaps need to consider to avoid risk.

Okay, so I hope you enjoyed doing that.

And maybe you learned a few words along the way from those different things on that list.

Right, next one.

Okie-doke.

So we're going to watch a clip in a moment quite short, but before we do that, I'd like you to write down three questions.

So that then when you're listening to the clip, you'll be able to know what you're listening for regarding answers.

So these are the three questions I want you to write down.

Perhaps it would be sensible just to leave, I don't know, maybe three lines, perhaps four centimetres so of space underneath each question for you to be able to put the answers in.

I'll just read the questions.

What has been done to prevent the risks associated with driving? Number two, what do people perceive as more risky, despite evidence suggesting the opposite? Number three, what is blamed for causing people to perceive danger when there is none? Just pause for a moment if you need a minute to write those down.

Right, let's have a look at some answers here.

So our first question, what has been done to prevent the risks associated with driving? Your answer would say something like this, driving has we made safer by the use of airbags, seat belt and speed limits.

I'm sure you got those.

Number two, what do people perceive as more risky despite the evidence suggesting the opposite? Flying is commonly thought to be a greater risk than driving despite statistics that show it is not.

And lastly, what is blamed for causing people to perceive danger when there is none? Debatable science or poor journalism by the media can cause the perception of risk to rise.

So the reason I just like that clip was because it's not just the actual risk that the government needs to kind of plan for, it's the fact that lots of people are going to be potentially scared of that risk.

Like our reaction when we perhaps first saw that picture of that snake around that child's neck, our perception of risk, our fear level has also got to be managed.

My fear level might've gone straight up and then someone would have had to say to me, no, no, it's fine, that's a petting zoo, it's a safe snake.

And I'll be, oh, okay, that's fine, okay? So that's something else that government has to manage where they're so not actually just the risk, but the perception of that risk and the fear it causes too.

Right, so having understood what's involved in risk management and we've done really well with that so far, we're now going to look at our key question for today's lesson.

We're going to kind of check the government's kind of back history on this.

So how well have UK governments managed risk over the last 20 years or so, okay? So we're going to do a task that relates to this activity.

I'm going to be asking you once I've explained this all through to read the first four pages of the worksheet before you carry out this evaluation.

There are four different sources that you will find on the topic of risk management on those worksheets, okay? Now the evaluation task is this, evaluate the following viewpoint.

The UK government has managed risk well over the last 20 years, okay? Evaluate the following viewpoint.

"The UK government has managed risk well "over the last 20 years." So you're being asked to evaluate that, to think about how far you agree with that.

So on the right-hand side here of my slide, I've just given you some things that you should consider, and this would be just how you might see this kind of activity appear on a potential exam paper if you were to take the exam on this.

So you should consider, demonstrating your understanding of the term risk management.

So it never hurts just to kind of explain in just a couple of sentences that you know what this question is referring to.

Second bullet point there, giving at least two examples of how the government was prepared.

So kind of like did well, and then getting at least two examples of the government perhaps not being quite so well prepared.

So the other side of the coin, the other side of the argument, and then you need to end, my last bullet point there by stating how far you think the statement is accurate or not, okay? So what I'm going to do now is I'm going to offer you some options.

You can either stop now by pausing it and have a go at doing that question by just going to the worksheets on your own and having a go at that, or you can choose to stay with me, and I will read through those first full pages of the worksheet.

I'll read through the sources and that might help some of you, if you want me to do that with you now.

And after that point, when I've done the four pages of the worksheet, you could then stop, pause the video and have a go at answering the question.

Or if you like, after I've read the full pages, I'm then going to give you some information about how you might structure this answer, and some suggested ideas for what you'd put on those two sides of that argument, okay? And it might be at that point, you then want to stop and have it go writing it up yourself.

Okay, so I'm going to carry on now and read through those worksheets.

First page of the worksheet.

Source one, Wiltshire floods, February, 2020.

A press association article in the Wiltshire Times said, "Temporary flood defences had been pushed back "towards a pub and other businesses, "sparking fears that the defences could be fully breached.

"Residents in the Worcestershire town at Bewdley where.

Sorry, if I pronounced that wrongly.

"Were forced to evacuate earlier "after the river spilled over barriers at Beasles Corner." The blue temporary flood defences there that you can see right there at photograph by the government's Environmental Agency have been completely overrun with water.

In fact, there's images of all of that, just a wash with water.

So this perhaps could be used as an example of the government being under prepared.

Okay, they've made some plans, but they weren't quite up to the job, okay? Source two, The Millennium Bug.

Martin Thomas wrote in The Guardian in 2019, "Many PCs, that's personal computers "could not handle dates in 2000.

"Faults were found in the computers "that controlled factories and offshore oil platforms. "The UK's Rapier anti-aircraft missile system "had a Y2K, that's year, 2000 fault "that would have prevented it firing.

"TaskForce 2000 led an awareness campaign "later joined by Action 2000 "with 17 million pounds of government budget." So the government paid some money to support this public awareness campaign.

"The Millennium Bug was real "and the internationally coordinated effort "was a great success.

"Tens of thousands of failures were prevented." However, public perceptions of the risk led to hysteria.

And we talked about that earlier.

This kind of fear, that is also got to be managed.

News bulletins were filled with horror stories about how this era was going to cause deadly calamity.

That was in a January, 2019 article in the Grimsby Live online newspaper and that's telling us all about that.

So perhaps the fear there might be used as an example of perhaps the government was over-prepared there, perhaps it made too much of this issue.

But certainly you could use this as an example of the government being well-prepared, because they did prevent lots of issues, as it says, tens of thousands of failures.

So you could use this as a positive, but if you needed to, you could use it as a negative as well being over-prepared.

Okay, you got that one with you? Right next one.

Source three, Nightingale Hospitals, 2020.

On the 23rd of March, the Prime Minister, Boris Johnson, announced lockdown measures in the UK.

On the 24th of March, the government announced it would turn the ExCel Centre in London into a temporary hospital to cope with patients affected by COVID-19.

Work began almost immediately and was completed in nine days.

Seven further temporary hospitals were erected in weeks.

The Financial Times reported that NHS England has not disclosed how much the English Nightingales have cost, beyond pointing out that both the London and Birmingham hospitals are occupying their expansive sites rent free.

"With further waves of Corona virus possible, it's important that we have these extra facilities in place for treating patients," said Simon Reeves, NHS England, Chief Executive.

So I thought that was quite a good example of the government being well-prepared.

So to do something quite so fast, they clearly must have had some plans in place prior to this virus occurring.

That meant that they knew they could use these spaces and bring in these different resources, such as the Red Cross, and the Army.

They knew they could pull those in fast and react to something like this.

So those plans had already been there in case something like this happened, okay? So that's a good example of the government being well prepared.

Source four, is a group of statistics, with different to the other pages here.

What I've got here, these are statistics from the Full Fact, the UK's Independent Fact Checking Charity, October, 2019.

These were online.

So now I've got four bullet points with some facts in, okay? Rough sleeping increased by 165% from 2010 to 2018.

In May, 2019, there were almost 4.

4 million referrals for treatment on the NHS in England, where the treatment had not yet begun, an increase of 70% compared to May, 2010.

There were around 202,000 members of the police workforce in England and Wales in March, 2019.

That's a decrease of 17% compared to March, 2010.

But it's worth pointing out that there is a police recruitment drive currently on.

In 2009 to 10, the Trussell Trust gave out almost 41,000 three-day food packages, and in 2010 to 11, they gave out 61,000 supplies.

Looking at either year, the increase is well over a 1000% in 2018 to 19, okay? So I just want you to think about whether you could use any of those statistics to make some sort of judgement on how well the government is managing the risk at which its citizens are, okay? Do any of those statistics suggest a risk to it's citizens? Does that mean that the government could have been managing that risk a bit better somewhere down the line? Just see if you could use some of those statistics.

So that's probably the most difficult of those four pages for you to try and incorporate in your answer.

But I want to just see if you can really have a go at that, 'cause I'm sure you can.

So that's the full page I've just read through.

So you could pause now and go off and think and see if you can do that activity for me now.

By all means rewind a little bit so that you can get the page that shows the evaluation statement on it.

If you're staying with me, I'm just going to go through the structure and show you an example paragraph now.

Right, so if I was planning this when I talked to my students about planning it, I talked to them about making a T-chart.

A T-chart, like that, a T.

So they've got kind of examples on one side on how the government might be prepared and then some examples on the other side about how the government may be not prepared.

And when there are sources involved like this as well, I make sure that they have looked to see which side of the T-chart they're going to put their sources on as well.

So they can ensure that they include the sources in their answer, okay? So here you can see on this slide here, I've put two examples of how the government was prepared.

So I've decided to use the Millennium Bug as a positive because I needed some things on that side of my argument, and I know I can make a case for that being the positive, so that's there.

And also for the Nightingale Hospitals on the positive side of the government being well-prepared.

And on the other side, I put the flooding for the government not being well-prepared because the place was overrun with water and the government perhaps should have done something about that.

Be, I don't know, maybe dredging or putting some better flood defences in, some permanent ones, maybe rather than temporary, okay? You can just make these suggestions.

And then also I put on that side, from the statistics, I've picked out the increase in rough sleepers, 'cause I thought perhaps I would have liked to have seen the government, maybe do some planning further back in time to ensure that we didn't have quite so many people who were in the position whereby they ended up becoming rough sleepers.

It's very complicated issue, and it's hard for any government to handle that, but still, I'm going to put that on that side of my argument, okay? And now I've got an example paragraph for how would you use either one of those bullet points and kind of flesh it out a little bit into a paragraph, into appeal paragraph we taught, we call them at our school.

So kind of point example and evidence, and then linking it back to the question initially.

Okay, so let's have a look at that now together.

So it says, "The UK government can be said "to have successfully managed risk "when considering the approach that it took "to the threat anticipated by the Millennium Bug.

"This IT crisis was anticipated to occur in the year 2000.

According to source two, the government set aside 17 million pounds to make all UK residents and businesses aware of the action that they should take to prevent their computers from crashing.

This shows the government identified a risk and set into motion a plan to reduce the negative effects of this risk.

So you can see there I started with my point, I then explained it a little bit, I've then made sure I've included my evidence, my example and then I've put my link in at the end, back to the overall question that I'm looking at, how the government has managed risk, okay? And then when I've done my full paragraph two on each side, I would then end with my evaluative conclusion whereby I would say something like overall, the evidence would suggest that the government has managed risk to a large degree, or you may disagree and you may put, overall, the government on balance, has not managed risk particularly well over the last 20 years.

And you're allowed to have your opinion there, that's when it comes through in that conclusion, okay? All right, well done so far.

So you can either stop now and have a go at writing it up or perhaps you've already written it up now and you just wanted to hear me talk through how I would have structured it.

Okay, let's just have a quick recap of what we've been doing today.

So have we learnt? We've learnt the process that's called risk management.

We all know now how to do that, which will be useful in life.

We've also considered the potential risks that our government may need to consider, including the perception of risk.

We've then looked at some recent examples of risk management that the government has had to manage.

And then finally, we've thought about how we would structure a long written answer to an evaluative style question.

So we've done quite a lot today.

So really well done for staying with that and making sure that you kind of understood what's not a particularly easy subject, so you've done really well if you're still with me now and you haven't vanished off, that's great.

I guess if you have written something down I'm absolutely certain, your teachers would love to see what you've done.

So perhaps it's a Word document, so you could send it to your teachers and they can see it or you just pass it to them when you next see them.

I know that I would certainly love to see anything that my students have written on these sorts of topics.

So I really hope you've enjoyed today's lesson and found it helpful.

And hopefully we'll watch some of the other citizenship lessons that will soon becoming your way.

That's all for today, bye.