Lesson video

Hello, my name's Mrs. White and I'm here to teach you citizenship.

I hope you've already done the first lesson of this unit of work which was about what a community is and how we could be a good neighbour.

Today we're going to be talking about how our school links with our wide community and you're going to be finding out more and doing some research about that.

About how it all links together.

So let's get started.

So today we're going to find out what role our school plays in our local community and how that's linked.

It's lesson two of six today.

And hopefully you already, you already watched lesson one and you've got some notes from there.

Today, as usual, you need some equipment for the lesson.

So you need paper to make notes, a pen and some colours, I always like lots of colour, that's the way my brain works, it helps me to remember stuff, and your enthusiastic learner head.

So you're ready to learn, I'm ready to teach, let's get going.

Now last lesson we talked about our community and what a community actually is.

We also talked about the fact that people are members of different communities and that's what makes their identity.

It gives you your identity.

And it makes us feel like we belong.

So today we're going to look at how our school links with that wide community.

So let's have a look.

What will we learn today? There's three main things we're going to find out today.

One is how is our school linked to the community.

That's the important thing.

The next thing is quite an important concept and it's called community cohesion.

So we're going to find out what is community cohesion.

And then we're going to learn some citizenship skills because as active citizens we need to be able to carry out these things.

And we're going to find out how we could find out more about our community.

And then I'm going to set your take away task, which hopefully you can do before next lesson.

Let's have a look.

Let's get going.

So what sort of community do you live in? Have a think about that.

Where do you live? I don't know where you live.

I do know that you live in England.

That you go to a school in England.

That could be from lots of different things.

So you could live in a village and get to school on a bus and your friends live quite a way away, so they might live in the next village, which is 10 or 15 miles away, or you might live in an urban community where actually everybody lives quite closely together.

And there's so many local schools, that some of your friends go to another local school that might only be a mile down your road.

But because so many people live in that area it's quite compact.

So we all live in quite different communities in England.

We've got cities and towns.

We've also got rural communities as well.

Have a think about what your community is like, first of all.

Just think about that.

Next thing we're going to get you to think about, and this is where you'll need your paper, is about the people and places involved in your community and how your school is linked to your community.

So what I'm going to ask you to do is get a piece of paper.

A piece of eight four or plain paper is fine as well.

Draw a circle in the middle that says, "Your school." I've done a heart because a heart is like the centre, isn't it? The heart of the community your school is.

So it's up to you how you do that.

But write your school in the middle and you can write the name of your school if you like.

Then write down all the links you think your school might have.

So around the outside of the centre is all the different things that you might think might be linked in.

So for example, you could be linked to a local youth club, which actually runs in your school in the evenings and at weekends.

And that some people at your school go to, but some other people from the community might go to as well.

Perhaps your school has lots of sports pitches and different teams come and practise and have their sports club there.

That's another link.

Maybe you have a local church or a local mosque where actually one of the leaders from your religious group will come in and talk to people in the school.

Maybe they do assemblies or maybe they do a school club.

You have to think about all the different links that might be in your school.

And then I want you to write down those links.

Write the links down on the paper.

So that's going to take you probably five to 10 minutes.

So soon as you've finished, we're going to get started.

So pause the video right now and complete the task and then start the video again when you're finished.

So, how is your school linked to your community.

Let's have a look.

I've kind of brainstormed this and put lot and lots of different ideas down.

I'm pretty sure you're going to have different ideas to me because every school is different and every community is different.

But you might see stuff on there that you think, oh actually we do that in my school and I'm going to add that.

So I'm going to have a look at a couple of examples.

Lets have a look at the UK's Youth Parliament, first of all.

Now we've got a member of the UK's Youth Parliament in our school and he's only been in place since February and obviously is not been the easiest time to be a member of the UK Youth Parliament, but actually it's really good link to the community, to the wider community.

Because not only has our member got to attend meetings in school and feed things back, he's also in the Dorset Youth Counsel, because I'm based in Dorset.

So he goes to those meetings and he's part of the UK Youth Parliament.

So hopefully, fingers crossed, in November, he will get the opportunity to go to a House of Commons, and actually sit there and take part in a debate and make a speech in the House of Commons.

And that's, that is where he is linked.

He's not just linked to our local community, he's linked to the national community as well.

I think that's important to realise.

That those links can be further.

Let's have another look at something we could do.

Election polling stations is another thing.

I suppose I'm more tuned into this because I'm a citizenship teacher.

But election polling station, is somewhere where people go to vote.

So it's a polling station and they might set one up when you have school elections in your school.

But also, schools are often used as venues for election day.

So you might have part of your school hall is cornered off so that people can come in and vote during the election day.

And it means that there's, in each centre of different communities, there's somewhere people can go, they can actually walk to the polling station and vote easily.

So they don't have to worry about having to get a car or anything like that.

It's very close.

So school could be a part of that.

So have a look at all the other things I've written down.

There's lots of things.

Add some more to your list if you'd like, and maybe there's some that I should add as well that you could think, oh you should've put that in.

So it's not always easy finding out or kind of writing down lists of things from the top of your head.

So actually, where can you find out more information? Well, you could look on school newsletters.

Often schools email those out regularly.

Sometimes it's to parents so ask your parents for those.

Maybe local papers, you can go onto the local newspaper website and have a look there.

Sometimes there are community notice boards outside village halls and supermarkets.

That might have information about things going on.

There's your school website, they often are the ones who have information about clubs.

And there's also regional TV because they often report about local stories, so there might be information about things that have happened in your school there.

So there's loads of different places that you could find out that information.

Now just to help you, you can write that list down because you'll need it later.

So, those five different things, places where you can find information.

So our next, concept is something called community cohesion.

Now this is an important concept because actually it's.

If we do this, if we can do this in our communities our lives would be much, much better and people's lives in the future will be much better.

So, let's have a look and see what that's all about.

Now I want you to sit back, put your pen down for a moment, and I want you just to relax and listen to this situation.

Okay? You relaxed? You ready? I want you to imagine a happy, successful, and well off place.

Where people from all the different backgrounds have equal opportunities in life.

Imagine a place where people respect each other.

Where everyone matters, whether they are old or young, they're settled or they're new.

Black or white.

And everyone knows their rights, as well as their responsibilities towards others.

The residence of this place recognise that there will always be differences, but that these difference need not divide people.

So can you imagine all these places? This place now.

Happy and successful.

Equal opportunities.

People respect each other.

Everybody knows their rights, as well as their responsibilities.

And differences don't divide.

Sounds good so far, doesn't it? Now imagine a place where people trust the local police.

Apologies, the local council, the police, the courts, the newspapers, the schools, and employees to act fairly towards everyone.

And where no one feels that others have preferential treatment.

In this place, people get on well together at work, at school, at college, and in public places.

They're not threatened by change, but recognise that everyone, newly arrived or already settled, has something to offer the community.

When disagreements arise, they are manged without violence and people live without fear of each other.

Now that sounds like the perfect place, doesn't it? And as an active citizen, you are actually really well placed.

You're in school right now and you're actually really well placed to help make this the future for not just me, who will be an older lady by then, but for you and your children.

It will be a better future for everybody.

So, this is quite an interesting concept.

But sometimes, we as we know, you and I know, communities do not always live happily together.

And sometime people judge each other by things like their age, or their ethnic group, religion, wealth, and class.

And they don't get to know each other, so they don't trust each other.

And this is a negative aspect of a community and we can work to change that.

You can work to change that too.

All of us together.

And even though you might feel like you are a young person, you've still got a full race and you still are going to learn the skills to take action.

You can make our community a better place.

Why should there be violence? Why should we be scared to go out? Why should we be scared about who will treat us different just because of our religion or our skin colour? That's all wrong.

So you can help make this a, your community, a good place to live in.

A place where everybody feels safe.

Now, basically that's community cohesion.

That's everybody living and working together.

Everybody respecting each others rights and being in a position where there, you know, they've got a fair chance in life.

If they work hard, they play hard.

They're good friends.

They're good neighbours.

Actually we can help each other to have a good life.

So, community cohesion is all about working and living together.

Can you write a summary of what you think community cohesion is? Id like you to write that on your paper.

And I'd like you to write about two sentences.

So, imagine the scenario of that I just talked about, this place where everybody lives together and their rights respected.

And then think about what you think it is with everybody together.

Cohesion means joined.

It means mixed together and joined.

And I want you to write two sentences about that.

When you finish writing that, start the video again.

So, you have probably written from your own perspective.

And you've written two sentences, I hope you've written two sentences.

Absolutely well done.

If you've written more than two sentences, fantastic! That's brilliant! But let's have a look at some possible sentences that you could've written.

There is a common vision and a sense of belonging for all in the community.

That's a good sentence.

That belonging is important isn't it? So look at the next one, the diversity of people's different backgrounds and circumstances are appreciated and positively valued.

So that is whatever you come from, whatever your ethnic background, whatever your language, whatever religion you are, whatever background you come from, whether you're able bodied, or disabled, or LGBT, part of the wider community, wherever you come from, that is valued.

Those from different backgrounds have similar life opportunities.

Wow! Wouldn't that be great if you felt like you had exactly the same chances as everybody else in your community? I think that's what we all want for everybody.

And strong positive relationships are being developed between people from different backgrounds in the workplace, in schools, and within neighbourhoods.

You're helping to do this now.

You're helping to develop strong, positive relationships in your school because, just because you're doing citizenship and your understanding what it's like to be in a community, you will be helping to build those relationships because you understand and have empathy for another person.

So that's about community cohesion.

If you've written anything similar to that, give you a massive tick.

If you want to add some stuff, this is the time.

You can add some stuff too.

Pause the video and add more information and then restart when you're ready.

So the next thing I'd like to do with you is to think about your skills.

Now at the beginning of the lesson, I talked about how you need to build your skills and what you need to do to actually become an active citizen.

One of the things is going to find out what's out there to be able to research.

And there's lot of ways that you can do that.

And we're going to look at that now.

You actually, once you learn those skills, it's easy to find out information.

It's easier to find out if there's misinformation out there.

That isn't true and you can find out whether or not somethings right or wrong.

You can find out different peoples perspectives.

Once you learn how to carry out research, it opens up a whole world of finding things out and it's brilliant.

So that's what we're doing now.

So this is about building your citizenship skills.

As an active citizen, you need these skills.

So this is a good one for you to think about, is your research skills.

And there's two main types of research.

One of those things is primary research.

And that, that's data that you collect yourself.

So you go out and you find out the information yourself.

So let's have a look at some of these different types of primary research.

So the first one could be an interview.

And you would ask detailed questions and discuss a topic with someone closely involved or affected by the issue.

So, you can't interview everybody, can you? You can't interview a thousand people, but you could interview an expert.

You could interview somebody who's involved with the issue.

Somebody who is maybe a victim of something or somebody who is working for the counsel and is actually trying to solve the issue.

Or maybe somebody who is going to benefit from the change you're trying to make.

So you can go and find out exactly what that person thinks about the issue and you can find out about their experiences and you can find out what they think.

And that is really important.

Also an interview can open up a relationship as well, where you can actually go back to that person and they will help you to advocate for the issue if they're on your side.

So the next thing, another type of primary research is a photographs and drawings.

So these detail where or what your issue is.

So for example, I've got some students in my school who, there's a play area where they live in kind of the middle of the estate.

But it's really rundown, there's lots of rubbish in there, it's overgrown now and the counsel hasn't cut that.

Cut it back or anything.

So it's not actually very safe for children right now.

So one of the really good things that my students did was they used a Google Earth, Google Maps, to get a picture and they screenshot a picture of that so they had the map of where it is.

So they can be really clear and identify it.

What they also did is go down there and take photographs.

Now we've all got camera available easily nowadays.

So they took photographs on their phones and then they uploaded those onto their presentation.

So they have those as evidence of what's going on.

So they could see what was there.

That is primary research.

And another sort of primary research is focus groups.

And this is a target audience.

So for example, if I wanted to talk about this play park, for example, that needs work, I could actually call a meeting, an open meeting in the local community centre, and I could actually ask people their questions and get them to feedback.

And I could talk to them in that meeting.

Or I could send those specific people questionnaires or I could do telephone interviews and ask them.

But they're focus groups and people that are specifically going to be effected by the issue.

So it would be quite good, wouldn't it, in that play park situation to go and go down to the local youth club and ask the children there.

Or maybe ask for time in an assembly at primary schools, so you can go in and say, how many of you use the park? How many of you want it to be improved? What ideas have you got? And that focus group means that I'm really getting clear information about what they think.

Another example is a questionnaire.

So a questionnaire is data you collect yourself.

What you do is send out a wider set of questions to a large number of people.

And you can use the email and the internet.

You can use things like Google Forms and Survey Monkey and things like that, to actually go and write a questionnaire and then send links out to people to fill in the answers.

And this is really good because you can have yes or no questions or you can have slide scales to see what sort of information, you know, where people feel, are they strongly agree or strongly disagree.

You can also ask people about, you can also ask people what they think and give them a chance to respond to you so you get quotes as well.

So a questionnaire is a really nice way to collect information.

Now the advantages of primary research, if you have a look at this box on the right hand side, is that it's usually recent information and you control the questions.

So you're working out what you want to find out and so you control those questions.

The disadvantages is it takes a long time.

You have to go and collect those things.

There's lots of materials that are needed.

Sometimes you have to, you know.

You're going out to do a focus group meeting and you might have to make all the arranges to rent a space and to get all the people in there and to advertise.

So actually there's some disadvantages too.

But the best things is that you're finding out exactly what you need to find out.

Now, the next sort of research that you can use building your citizenship skills, is secondary research.

And this is based on research that you've already carried out.

Sorry, that other people have already carried out.

So for example, it might be magazine articles, books, and journals.

So these are expertly written using journalistic skills where they're going out to find out who, why, where, what, when, how.

And what the key information is.

And also journals, where it might be a specialist, like somebody doing their PhD like a doctor, and they're actually filled with scientific research and data that you can use and you can verify and it's peer reviewed, which means other doctors look at it before it gets to go out and everybody gets to see it.

So that's a really good way of finding clear information.

Other peoples interviews they've carried out, you can watch or listen to an interview that's already conducted.

And also another place you could find out information is the Office of National Statistics.

And this uses, they do the research, and there's existing data about many different topics on there like education, and crime, and birth rates, lots of different things going on.

So you can find the Office of National Statistics if you search on the internet and there's loads of data there.

And it's reliable data as well.

Now there's advantages and disadvantages too about types of research.

With secondary research, the advantages are the data is already analysed and discussed for you.

So you have to pull out the key information by reading the reports and things like that, but it's already there.

The disadvantages is that the information may not be exactly what you want and the data may not give you clear answers.

So you have to extrapolate your own answers from there.

You have to analyse and evaluate the answers and find out if it's helping you with the information that you need.

So, it's not always exactly right.

So, the activity that I'd like you to do is a research activity now.

And I want you to find out some information for yourself.

And I want you to find out about your school clubs.

And one way to improve community cohesion is to get together and share interests.

And school club is a really good way of doing that.

Because people from different outside communities, who are members of your school community, can also take part in the activities.

You get to know them, they become your friends, and it actually helps with community cohesion.

So I'd like you to do some secondary research.

So find out what school clubs and after school activities exist at your school.

And then I'd like you to do some primary research.

So once you've done your list, share it with a classmate.

And I want you to ask them what they like about the list and what they'd like to add.

Okay, what thing do they think would be better and add it too.

When you finish that then we'll go on.

What I'm going to do though, before you pause this video, I'd like you to see the next slide and see a table and the way that I've laid it out.

So that it helps you with your one.

And then we'll go back to this slide and we'll pause it, okay? So you see here, we've got a table.

And that table is, at the top there's the headings.

What activity? What are they for? Where's the information? Where did I get that information from? The source of the information.

What do others think about it? This is what I found out from my friends.

And is there anybody from the wider community involved? So I'd like you to write those headings in yours, okay? So for example, looked at debate club, that's for all years at my school.

I asked my teacher.

So actually, emailed the teacher and just found out what was going on.

What do others think? Well, they love it.

The other person, I talked to loved it.

There's lots of students that go there at lunch time.

And is there any wider community links? Well, in this situation, the school librarian brings in lots of resources and news stories to spark a debate.

So actually, there is links to the wider community there as well.

So I'd like you to create your own table for your clubs and things that go on in your school.

The other activities as well, okay? I'm going to go back.

Now, I'd like you to pause the video to complete that task.

So finally, what did we learn today? Well we learned how our school is linked to the community and we've seen an example, a couple of examples, where actually the school is used as a venue, but also where people in the school go out with the UK Youth Parliament, for example, and they actually talk about what young people want to the wider community.

So you've got a different list to me.

All our schools are different, but actually every school has outside links.

The next thing we looked at, if you remember, was this, we kind of imagined a perfect community.

And we thought about community cohesion and how the communities linked together.

Well.

We talked about that, you've written definition, and if you look back at your notes, you'll see that actually you.

And then we talked about research.

A key citizenship skill.

And how could we find out more about our community.

And you went out and you found out about your school community and the clubs and activities that are going on.

Now let's not end it there because what I'm going to get you to do is another task, a takeaway task.

So the takeaway task today is going to be about improving your school community.

And using your voice as a young person to actually influence your head teacher.

So today, you're going to be thinking about a proposal to your headteacher.

Now the takeaway task is about, you need to use your research and think about in what ways your school could be used to improve, either the facilities for your community or to improve community cohesion.

Now you've done lots of research into the clubs and activities that go on.

Have a look at those and think which one, what could we do to improve, which one would improve community cohesion? What else could we do? And I'd like you to communicate your idea, once you've written those down.

Communicate your idea to your headteacher and your citizenship teacher.

And then I want you to start a conversation.

See what they think.

They might say that's a great idea, would you like to meet? Or they might say, actually that's already happening in another year group, here's a contact that you can get in touch with.

So, I want you to write a proposal about how your school could be used to improve the facilities for the community.

Or to improve community cohesion.

Then email that to your headteacher.

Now what I'd like you to do, if you've got any good ideas, is to share your work with Oak National.

If you'd like to, please ask your parent or carer to share your work on Instagram, or Facebook, or Twitter.

And tag @OakNational and #LearnwithOak in that.

So that's the end of today's lesson.

So we've done all those things, we've learned about quite a lot.

I'm hoping you've kind of got the bug for going out and doing your own research as well and finding stuff out.

Be an investigator.

Find out what's going out there.

Think about what could be improved and enjoy, enjoy learning.

Enjoy being an active citizen.

I'll talk to you soon.

Have a great time until our next lesson.

And take care, bye.