Lesson video

My name's Mrs. White and I'm a citizenship teacher.

I hope that I'll be your citizenship teacher today and we're going to be looking at what are laws.

So let's start the lesson.

Make sure you've got, pen and paper something to write on.

Clear the decks, give yourself a bit of space to think about the learning that we're doing today.

Okay, so let's get everything ready and let's get started.

So, first thing.

I'd like you to think about, is to imagine if there's no laws.

There's no laws, no rules.

There are nothing to hold you down and stop you doing what you want to do.

What would you do? What could you do that you didn't before? Have a think about that.

Ah, there's a twist in this though, I didn't tell you about.

Life's not as simple as that.

You might be free from rules and laws, but so would everyone else, absolutely everyone.

What would that be like? Have a think about that.

So I'd like you to pause the video and when you pause it I want you to think about what our society would be like if we have no rules or laws.

I want you to write your ideas down on paper so you can use a mind map or a list, whatever you choose.

So there's a scaffold there to help you.

A society without laws would mean.

Think about the list, okay.

What would it be like? Restart the video when you're done.

Ready to go.

Okay, what ideas did you come up with? Now you might've thought, let me think that I can go where ever I want.

I can take things from shops for free.

I can drive my family car.

In fact, I can have my own car.

I can eat what I like and sleep when I like.

I wouldn't have to do learning anymore.

Well, but I'm sure you're far more creative than me.

So you've probably got an even more exciting list than that.

And it sounds quite good, doesn't it? The idea of not having laws at all.

But without laws we would live in fear.

The strongest or most powerful people would control our society.

So there's a system of laws to protect you and your rights.

To make life safer for all of us, for absolutely everyone.

Now, in this lesson we're going to learn, what laws are and why we have them.

So we're going to find out what is a law.

We're going to understand what law is and how it affects us.

And then we're also going to look at legal age limits.

So looking at what age you are permitted to do a range of different things.

So we're going to have a look at that today.

Hopefully, you'll find it quite interesting and maybe think about all the stuff you can do or you can't do.

So let's go.

And what is a law? Have a look at this chest set here.

Now even games have rules that you shouldn't break.

Chess is quite a complicated game, it's got complicated rules, but once you get the hang of it, you can play the game.

As you get better and better and think about the tactics and how you can move each piece properly, the game evolves and you could become a chess master.

But we have to follow those rules.

You couldn't play that game if we didn't have the rules in there.

Now law is a system of rules that a country or community have agreed and follow.

It regulates your actions so that if you break the law then there could be penalties.

Laws state what your rights are, what your duties are under that law.

Each country has its own laws that everyone has to obey, including visitors if they're not a citizen of that country.

The law states what the penalties are for anyone who breaks the law.

And there's a police force to keep order and to stop people breaking the law, and to arrest them if they do.

Now, let's just have a look at word penalties here.

That's actually, if you imagine playing football and you foul another player, you get a penalty or the other team gains a penalty.

It means that they can take a free kick.

They might score a goal from that if take a corner, they can actually benefit from that because your own, your wrongdoing.

So you lose out.

So penalty is a punishment if you like.

So remember that.

Now, you might not know what the law is, but it's your responsibility to know what the law says and to obey it.

And ignorance is no excuse.

Ignorance of the law is not regarded as a valid excuse if you're found breaking the law.

So for example, if you're riding your bike on the pavement and you bump into another person, because they were walking on the pavement, and you hurt them, you will be the one in trouble because actually you're not allowed to cycle on the pavement.

The highway caters you can cycle on the road or on a cycle path, a designated cycle path.

So if you cycle on the pavement, bump into somebody, you didn't realise you weren't allowed.

You would be the one in trouble.

Now, each country has its own laws.

When you live in a country, you must obey its laws.

And when you visit that country, you must have obey that country's laws too.

So you'll find that different countries have different laws.

So it's really helpful before you go on holiday to have a little bit of research and go and find out what things you need to know about that country.

And the majority of people respect the law and they obey it.

And there's a number of reasons why people are law-abiding.

That means they follow the law.

They may have strong religious or moral principles.

They may be afraid of the punishments, they might receive if they're caught and found guilty.

They may want to avoid the shame of being labelled a criminal and sent to prison.

So imagine why you follow those.

Is it to make life easier? Is it stop you getting into trouble? Is it to, mean that you could follow your life and work in a way that is it's easy and controlled? Why do you follow laws? Have a think about that.

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

On your paper, write a summary or bullet point of what law is.

So several bullet points if you like, just explain what laws are.

What is the law? Okay.

So the law is a system of rules that society or government develops in order to deal with crime, business agreements and social arrangements.

So if you've got anything like that, then brilliant, well done.

If you didn't quite get it right, then copy this statement down, because that can help you as well.

Now you might be interested in laws and want to go into bit more depth on that.

If you go onto this website, legislation.

gov.

uk.

You'll find lots of information about all the different legislation.

That means collection of laws in the UK.

So it's really helpful for you to go down.

If you go to enter the title part of this, and you'll see that it says a space there that says title, try typing dog for example.

Find all the laws related to dogs.

And I went on this website and I found a law going right back to the 19th Century five, you know, explaining to people how they can look after their dog and what the laws are around that, what rules are.

So this is interesting website and it's all up to date and it is a really good thing to do.

So later on if you think, oh, I have to look it on this website, come back to the video, who was on this page and you can copy down this website.

Now we now know that different countries have different laws.

Let's take a look at this.

Let's take a look at different countries' laws.

Now we've got English law and we're going to compare it with US federal law.

That means not state's law.

There's 50 different states and they've all got their own laws as well as the laws for the whole country.

So we're just going to look at it from this perspective.

In the UK when you sue somebody for libel that means you lie about something in print.

It's up to the defendant to prove that what they said was true.

So libel, if you want to think about the opposite of that is slander.

Libel is library if you like.

So it's in writing.

And slander starts with S the same speak and it's speaking.

So if you say, if you're slanderous it means you're lying about somebody by speaking.

And if it's you're libellous, it means you're writing about them.

So let's have a look at the US federal law.

In the US if someone accuses you of libel and sues you, they need to prove that what you said was false.

So that means the ownness is on the other person in the USA.

It's on the individual.

The person who's trying to sue them has to say that this is false because this, this and this.

Whereas in the UK, the defendant, the person that we're accusing of lying has to prove that it's true.

Okay, confusing maybe.

But let's look at the English law, in terms of crossing the road.

This is something I'm pretty sure you've all done.

So in the UK, you can cross the road wherever you like as long as you take care.

Please don't take a risk and cross in front of traffic.

You know, look both ways don't cross by parked cars or the Highway Code.

Do you know how to do that? But in the USA, you have to cross the road.

And if you cross the road where there's no marking that says you're allowed to cross, you're usually breaking the law.

This is called jaywalking.

So you have to cross at pedestrian crossing, specific places.

You can't just nip across the road like you can in this country.

So that's quite interesting.

Let's have a look at another one.

If you rent a house or flat in UK, you owe the council money.

We call this Council Tax.

This pays for local services such as bin collections.

And the amount is decided by how much the property is worth.

But in the US if you're renting a property, you don't have to pay tax on that.

And the property taxes is the landlord's problem, not yours.

So you don't have to worry about it over there.

So let's have a little review of this section.

Let's have a look.

Okay.

So we've talked about what laws are and we've compared laws.

We know that there's laws in other countries.

And that they're sometimes different to ours.

So can you remember a couple of different things? One question here is, what is a collection of laws called? Let's have a look at this.

What is a collection of laws called? Have a think.

Can you remember? And who has to abide that is obey by laws.

Who has to abide by laws? So the first one is legislation.

Did you get that right? Collection of laws is called legislation.

And all of us have to abide by the laws of the country we're in.

So remember that every single person, the law applies to everyone.

Now I said at the beginning of the lesson, we've look at legal age limits.

There are so many different legal age limits in the UK.

And I'll talk about some way that you could go later on and have a look at that.

And further lesson you can look at some different law things, but find out a bit more about it.

Let's go and have a look at few today.

In many countries, legal age limits exist.

That mean a person can't take part in certain activities until they reach the correct birthday.

Across the UK there are many laws which aim to keep children safe and protect their rights.

These laws ensure children's voices are heard.

They set out when a child can take part in various activities.

They make sure children have access to education.

They provide for children having a safe home.

They provide support for children who need to leave home.

They make sure children are safe, if they decide to get a job.

They make sure children's personal information is safe.

So these legal age limits are really important to keep us safe.

Let's have a look at some English examples.

So the first one age five.

At age five, your parents have to make sure you're in full-time education, at school or homeschooled.

At age 12, if you get a new passport, it must be signed by you and not your parent.

Age 10.

So sorry, I'm going bouncing back again.

But you have full criminal responsibility for your actions and can be convicted of a criminal offence.

And at age 15, you can apply to Royal Navy and Royal Air Force at 15 years and nine months.

But you will not be able to serve until you are 16.

So those of you that are not interested, the army is 15 years and six months.

So you still got six months wait until you get in and you can serve.

And you might think well, don't have to stay in school until we're 18.

Well actually, as long as you're training or you're in education, that counts.

So if you're in the Royal Navy, in Royal Air Force, you'll still be training till you're 18 years old and then you could be on the front line of any action that's happening within the forces.

So let's move on a little bit.

So now, I'm going to ask you to pause the video, and I want you to complete this task on your paper.

I want you to read the legal ages information sheet.

Do you think these are fair? Why do you think these age limits exist? And would you change any of them? Like to note down your thoughts and see what you think there? Okay, let's summarise this.

What have we learned this lesson? So we've learned what laws are and why we have them.

We know what is a law.

We understand what law is and how it affects us.

And we know that there are some legal age limits and we can do certain things at certain ages.

Okay.

Now before we go, before we leave today, I'd like you to do this takeaway task.

So you can pause the video.

We'll go back from the video to this thing.

I want you to imagine that you and everyone in your school is shipwrecked on a desert island.

No adults are with you.

Let's make it easier.

Let's say that there's water and food available.

So there might be plants that you can eat and animals that you can catch to eat.

I want you to discuss with your family, what rules you should all follow to make sure everyone is safe and that they have rights in there.

It's going to be interesting, isn't it? Can you all agree in your family.

I want you to think about, who makes the rules? How do you enforce the rules? How will you settle disputes? And do you need to punish people? After you've had this discussion with your family and you had that chat, you might ask an adult to tweet #LearnWithOak, @OakNational and say the idea that you've had for rules that you will have on your desert island.

And think that'd be interesting.

Really like to hear that stuff.

So, that's your first introductory lesson to what is law.

There's going to be several more lessons that I hope you'll be interested in watching.

I enjoyed the lesson today and I look forward to seeing you soon.

Bye.