Lesson video

Hello everyone, and welcome back to Citizenship.

My name is Mrs Shortland and this is your very final lesson in the unit called "Why was the struggle for the vote important today?" All you're going to need as ever is a pen and a piece of paper.

If you can find somewhere quiet where you won't be disturbed, that'd be great too.

When you're ready, just pause the video, get yourself organised, write down today's title and I will see you in a bit.

Let's just recap everything you've learned in this unit and the new knowledge that you now have around the concepts of democracy and rights.

We started right at the top.

Number one, looking at what political rights were and through exploring the campaigns of both the charters and the suffragettes, we saw how through their struggle political reform was eventually achieved.

Whilst our democratic rights have changed and improved over the last 200 years, some people believe that the voting reform has not gone far enough.

And last lesson, we considered the debates around 16 and 17 year olds being given the vote.

One thing this issue has highlighted is that the struggle for the vote steeped in all its history is still very much relevant today, isn't? Today we're going to see how people of any age can create change in their communities even if they're not old enough to vote in elections.

Age doesn't prevent young people from using their voice and being politically active and exercising their democratic rights.

So, how we're going to structure our learning today is we're going to have a look at what our democratic rights are because we need to understand that term before we can move forward.

We're going to have a look at how we can get involved in democracy and then we're going to have a look at some local to global actions.

And then finally, if you'd like to, it'd be great if you make a pledge.

Something that you are going to commit to and you can use all of the examples that you're going to get from today's lesson to help you with that pledge.

Now, just before we get started, you might've seen this definition in other citizenship lessons.

The definition of rights.

Rights are entitlements that every one of us has.

These protects our freedoms and the way we live our lives.

You might just want to pause the video to get down that definition and then restart in a minute.

Now we understand what rights mean, what do we mean by the term democratic rights? Have a look at this list of articles under the Human Rights Act of 1998.

In the UK, our rights are protected in law by lots of different types of legislation.

And for over 20 years, the Human Rights Act has given further effect to write some freedoms guaranteed under the European convention on human rights.

The human rights act is there for every one of us to defend our rights as well as holding the powerful to account.

It protects our right to protest or to pray and to prevent us from being discriminated against.

Have looked at those articles.

Within the human rights act, there are specific articles that are linked to political rights.

Those rights which allow us to influence public decision making and decision makers.

We do this through such actions as campaigning or voting as you've seen.

Just look at the articles now in bold.

The freedom of expression gives us the freedoms to hold opinions and also the right to agree or disagree with those in power and to express these opinions in peaceful protests.

The freedom of assembly shows people can gather and meet both publicly and privately.

Assemblies can be platforms to advocate for change and for people to raise awareness about issues that matter to them.

Lastly, your right to participate in free elections.

This is a foundation of any healthy democracy.

People must be allowed to choose their representatives.

Elections must be fair and equal.

Pause the video now just to write down the articles that relate to democratic rights, then press play when you're ready to continue.

Welcome back.

Let's have a look at our democratic rights in the form of this magnificent tree which you might want to draw as I'm talking through this slide.

So, why the right to vote, is why do you recognise as a fundamental right.

This right is not really fully enforced for millions of people around the world.

Consistently disenfranchised groups include young people, minorities, those who commit crimes, the homeless, disabled persons and many others who lack access to the vote for a variety of reasons including poverty, intimidation or unfair election processes.

We have greater freedoms in the UK but too much and if we didn't.

I'll just picked one or two of these areas to explore further.

Have a look at free and secret ballots.

Well, until the Ballot Act was passed in 1872, voters had declared their candidate openly.

Voting was not done in secret and this led to fights, intimidation, violence and bribery.

Voting in secret prevents most of this.

You can still be influenced to vote in a certain way but no one will ever know who you voted for because it's anonymous through our guarantee of secret ballots in the UK.

Have a look at regular elections and choice of political systems. And there's many countries that are not as free as the UK when it comes to these ideas.

For example, in Saudi Arabia, the King is chosen by his predecessor, the King rules for life and his cabinet, which is appointed by the King passes all the laws.

The King also serves as the prime minister, political parties are forbidden, freedom of expression is limited and freedom of assembly is not granted at all having harsh punishments for those who participate in public protests.

Okay, lots of information there.

Hopefully you've drawn your democratic tree.

Let's have a quick quiz to see how far you understand your democratic rights.

You're ready? Okay, let's see how far you've understood what the democratic right is in this context.

Are you ready? Option one, which of these is a democratic right? Not option, which of these is a democratic right? Option one, right to life.

Option two, to stand as an MP in election, option three, right to a fair trial, option four, to eat sweets and the answer is chucked out to point to the screen, option two, well done.

Which of these is a democratic right? Freedom of assembly and association, right to marry, protection from discrimination or to eat crisps.

I miss a bag of crisps actually.

Okay, ready? Point to the screen or shout it out.

It is option one, well done, brilliant job.

Great, now you understand a bit more about democratic rights.

Let's move on to see how we can use our democratic rights.

I'd like you to draw a bubble map and watch the video.

You're going to list all the ways you can get involved and participate in democracy if you're not old enough to vote.

So, I'll see you back in a bit One way to have a say in how the country is run is to use your vote.

You have to be 18 or over to vote in general elections but you can register it from the age of 16.

There were lots of other ways to get involved and have your voice heard, whatever your age.

Remember, MPS represents all of their constituents.

But how? You can visit an MP in their local constituency office or you can even travel to the houses of parliament to lobby them in central lobby.

Lords have knowledge and experience in specific subject areas.

You can look them up by policy interest on the parliament website.

Anyone can contact any Lord or their local MP by letter or email to discuss an issue that's important to them or their community.

sometimes though, there are strength in numbers.

So, to get your voice heard, you could join the youth section of a party or the UK Youth Parliament.

If you're passionate about an issue, you could start a petition for a cause either on paper or online or join an existing campaign, pressure or protest group to influence decision-making.

These groups use different methods to get their voices heard from lobbying to peaceful protest, all designs to bring about change.

And don't forget, you can get your voice heard in school or college too by joining or starting a student council a bit like a mini parliament.

So, parliament sits at the heart of UK democracy debating the big issues of the day, making and shaping laws and holding the government to account.

By voting, petitioning, campaigning and more, you can also get involved with the work of parliament.

What will you do? I hope you enjoyed that video.

How many actions did he list? He mentioned quite a lot, didn't he? From sending a letter or making a phone call or visiting your MP or member of Lords to join in the youth section of a political party.

We're in quite a good place in terms of democracy, thanks to those who have struggled with the vote and won more political reforms. However, there are many issues of concern to people in the UK and knowing how to take parts in society in a positive way to create change is really important.

You have to know who to talk to and know the most effective type of action.

For example, if you wanted to improve your local park, then perhaps your local council would be your first place of contact.

If you had a bigger issue such as how we deal with homelessness, then your MP might be better to approach because they could bring your issue to parliament.

So, let's have a look at our next activity.

What action would you take? Look at the list of ways that a person can get involved in their community.

Which action would you take to resolve each of these issues shown? And what I want you to do is connect the issue with the action.

So, let's have a look at our first one.

There are no support groups at school for our LGBT, lesbian, gay, bi, trans community.

Look at those nine options there, which one do you think might be better to address that issue? Somebody to approach and action to take.

Would you get involved with the student council, write to your local MP or local counsellor, would you boycott or stop buying or using a company or setup or something, you get the idea? There are no right or wrong answers here, it's entirely your own opinion.

Just try and match the activity with the best sort of action that you can.

Just pause the video and we'll talk about this in a minute.

How did you do? There's a number of actions you could take for each of those scenarios.

So, I'd just like to give yourself a tick for the ones that you chose.

Let's have a look at a few more examples in a bit more detail.

You can take actions locally, on a wider scale and politically.

So, as we go through some examples, just pause the video at any time to take down notes and you'll need to look back over this lesson for your final activity.

So, you could get too involved by going local.

Let's have a look at the student council.

Here they are.

What is a student council? These are pictures from my student council about some of the activities that they do.

A group of students who are elected to represent the views of all students and to improve their school and local community.

Members campaign on issues that are important to them, some student councils may support charities or NGOs but their main job is to listen to the views of students in their school and put forward concerns and ideas to the principal and/or governors.

To encourage more people to vote, my student council has started a voter registration drive.

Every year 11 is given a paper registration form to fill in and then they have an assembly all about how did you go about it and why voting matters and you can see them taking part in a couple more activities in the photos.

One is creating ribbons to sell for World AIDS Day and another one is a group of students taking part in Make Your Mark.

I think we covered that in a cup a couple of lessons ago, didn't we make your mark? So, have a look back if you want to recap on what that is.

So, how can you improve your school community? Just thinking about a proposal to your student council.

How active your student council could you suggest activities or issues to increase that democratic participation? For example, creating a voter registration drive or taking part in World AIDS Day which is on the 1st of December every year.

Let's get some more ideas.

You could exercise your democratic rights by going wider, by taking action on a more national and global scale.

Let's have a look at the work of NGOs.

They are non-profit for voluntary citizens groups independent of government, they can be local, national or international and they're often humanitarian or provide a service for somebody else.

So, have a look at non-governmental organisations, maybe do a bit more research on the types of NGOs that are.

We going to look at one in particular.

We're going to have a look at Amnesty International.

Amnesty International is an organisation that started in 1961 by Peter Benenson.

Amnesty research human rights abuses around the world and bring the research to the attention of people in governments and mobilise, which just means bring together people to campaign.

Amnesty also publicises those who violate or break the rights protected under the Universal Declaration of Human Rights in 1948.

This includes freedom of speech and the conscience and that is your thoughts on what is right or wrong.

They also campaign against torture.

Let's have a look at the structure of Amnesty International.

Well, they have their headquarters in London, then UK division consists of lots of local branches.

Look, to over 280 different groups.

And internationally, they have 50 offices as well, some in the European Union but also worldwide from Afghanistan to Zimbabwe.

And what they do is, like we said before, is they research, they take part in advocacy and lobbying and they campaign.

Okay, so if you wanted to find out more about Amnesty, well, how could you get involved? On human rights day, every year, 10th of December, they have a "Write for Rights" Campaign where letters are sent to governments to demand change, or to those wrongly imprisoned to send messages of hope and support.

Salil Shetty, Amnesty International's Secretary General until 2018 said, "Imagine being ill in jail and receiving thousands of letters of support and solidarity or finding out that people all over the world are behind you in your quest for justice for murdered relative.

Writing letters really can change lives." So, one way to get involved in Amnesty is to get involved in "Write for Rights." Or you could invite an unlisted speaker to talk to your class or somebody with 260 local branches.

There's bound to be a local branch near you or even you could become an Amnesty International speaker and you can also start an Amnesty Youth Group.

So, you might want to have a look and do some research into that organisation.

Okay, there's another organisation that you might consider getting involved with.

If you want to go political, have a look at the UK Youth Parliament.

This is a democratically elected group of 369 members, all aged 11 to 18 years old.

And they're elected to represent the views of young people in their area to government and service providers.

Over 500,000 young people vote in the election every year.

Members meet regularly and hold debates and run campaigns with an annual debate in the House of Commons in November.

And a member of the Youth Parliament is called an MYP.

We're on task four already and I'd like you to meet the outstanding, the incredible Brahmpreet.

She's actually a former student of mine so I might be a little bit biassed there but after watching the video, I think you'll agree.

Watch the video and answer the following questions.

What advice does Brahmpreet give? What action did she take as an MYP and how is Brahmpreet being an active citizen today? Now, she does mention using social media.

So, just to remember you have to be 13 before having social media accounts.

She will give you so much advice about how you can use your democratic rights and take part in lots of different campaigns and actions.

So, have a lesson and I will see you back in a bit.

And yeah, some of the campaigns I've taken part in include mental health campaigns, recently I was taking part in Black Lives Matter, I've taken part in race and religious discrimination which was a massive campaign and I was really interested in council, and you don't have to be an active member completely or just trying to go to these meetings, listening to people's ideas and even if this isn't one of the big things I think I remember, even if a campaign doesn't go the way you want soon, it doesn't come out one of the greatest ones and you still did something to make a difference and you still put yourself in that position and at the time you don't realise it, you're always put a size in yourself and you're always say, "Well, I didn't, I didn't do that." Well, and my eco-friendly campaign in school didn't go as well but again I mean, you did so much.

You went out, you spoke to people, you called people, you went to your Twitter group in the morning and you spoke about this issue.

A lot of the time, it was literally morning, 8:30 going around to your groups spreading the word about a campaign or talking to other people and really organise them in a way where we can all or achieve the target.

I mean, it was something from like I said, the eco-friendly campaign to something around sports and getting more sports facilitators, just look at something that is affecting you and your friends to begin with and just go from there.

And you'll just notice how much over years, over time, very, very long weeks that a campaign begins to develop more how you begin to develop as a person because I came in and Jere and Mrs Shortland you'll notice I was just completely shy.

I was passionate and I think that was recognisable but I just didn't know how to pursue that passion.

So, just find that in a political voice, find that passion, what you believe really strongly for even if it's online, if it's in school, even out of school, don't think too small, think out the box and just go ahead with it and pursue it because it will get you far the time when it gets towards the Lords, the MPS and those decision makers about the issues you really care about.

This is potential politics or anywhere you go is normally unlimited and you just need to be really strong and passionate and resilient.

I think as world where you don't take no for an answer, you will get no people will say, "No, we're not going to give you a response, no, this is not happening." But just continue with the fight.

Continue to fight, it takes a lot of courage but you have to start off small and start off with believing your local community and just work your way up and what I'm doing at the moment, I'm very happily involved in my local community and local city council in terms of knife crime again it's a massive issue for young people in different communities in Leicester.

So, I'm working with a local task force who was commissioned with the police commissioner and we're working to find solutions around and how it basically makes communities and neighbourhoods safer and I'm pursuing the interest of the youth services so from my opinion, I think we require lots of youth clubs and youth provision in order to make it a safer place for all communities.

So, I'm doing a lot of work around that and in parallel to that, I'm just doing online activism.

Like I said, it went from being in the person campaigning to then doing stuff online.

So, I'm doing a lot of stuff around.

Log in at Twitter, Instagram.

I'm reaching wider audiences around the world.

Yeah, I mean if I had three top things that I think every young person or everyone in here, right should be doing is find that inner voice, find out what you've really strongly passionate about, pursue it, don't give up on it.

It can be de-motivating looking at the news, it can be quite frustrating, switch off the news.

You don't have to be engaged with the news, switch off the news, think about the issues that matter to you, your friends, your community, think about things that you would like to see a change.

Like in my community, it was a youth club so I pursued that, and it got to the national level where we had to go to Australia and speak to a whole load of offices around why we should have youth clubs around the world and how that can prevent knife crime, terrorism, etc.

So, I think it's so good that we pursue our interests and what we're passionate about.

It doesn't have to be a national campaign that everyone's talking about, it can be literally something you want to do.

Well.

I told you she was pretty amazing, didn't I? I'd like you now just to pause the video to complete your task.

There's some sentence starters on the screen if you need them and if not, just answer the questions that we have before.

Okay, how did you do? She said a lot, didn't she? Here's some of the things that I wrote down.

Brahmpreet says, "Find your inner political voice and what you believe in.

Start off small, don't worry if your campaigns go wrong, keep going, switch off the news and think about issues that matter to you.

Be resilient, be passionate, but don't give up.

Citizenship lessons are a great place to start thinking and talking about politics and action.

Some of the actions you can get involved in.

Taking part in the student council, getting involved in community groups, the UK Youth Parliament.

You can visit your local youth centre and then get involved in campaigning on local issues.

As an MYP, Brahmpreet wanted to get her local issues talked about at national level.

She gave a speech in parliament on religious discrimination and talked about the closure of youth services and knife crime.

And she's still going.

She's been working with the Leicester city task force to find solutions in making communities safer as well as doing lots of online blogging.

A really impressive and incredible role model for young people.

Okay, so, if you didn't want to take part in the UK YP, have you thought about joining a political party? A political party is a group of people who share similar views.

They work together so they can have a better chance of gaining power.

The major parties are conservative, labour, Liberal Democrats and the Green Party and they usually differ on main issues.

But how do you join a political party? Below our political parties whose representatives were successful in elections to the House of Commons at the 2019 General Election, quite a few of them.

And you can support any of those for free.

You can also become a member of any party for a fee, usually that fees a bit lower the younger you are and some parties do have an age restriction.

Most parties won't let you be a member if you're a member of another political party.

If you do decide to join, have look at the party website first and there's usually a youth section.

You can even stand to be part of a national youth committee and really make an impact.

So, you might be interested in having a research of some of those political parties and see what they do.

You're nearly at the end of your lesson now.

So, time for some reflection.

You might want to draw this diagram and just add some points to it.

Looking back on your learning, were there any surprises that you encountered? Where do you stand? So, here you could write about some of the actions that we've talked about, what do you think about them? What do you think about taking part in those actions? You might want to think back a lot further into some of the lessons we've looked at in the whole unit and consider your position on some of the issues we've talked about there.

I want you to think critically about all the information today, weigh it all up and then you're going to think about a plan for action.

How are you going to do that? Well, your takeaway task for today, your mission should you choose to accept it, which I hope you will.

Just to make a pledge, you've heard so many different ways you can get involved and exercise your democratic rights without a vote.

So, look back over all of your notes and create your pledge of action.

How are you going to make a difference this year? I really hope that you'll consider making a pledge and become active in your community.

And if you already are, think about one of the other things that you could take part in.

And here we are at the very, very end of our final lesson of this unit.

I hope you've enjoyed it.

Look at what we've done.

We've looked at what democratic rights are, how we can get involved in democracy, all those actions you looked at.

We met Brahmpreet, explored the UK youth parliament, looked at Amnesty International and finally I'm hoping that you've made a great pledge.

I'm not sure what my pledge would be but certainly to get more involved in my student parliament at school and do even more exciting things this year.

So, last thing to do, I'd love you to take part in the quiz that I've made for you and just prove your learning because it's been lots of learning today.

And so very last, very, very, very, very last thing, promise if you'd like to, please ask your parents or carer to share your work on Instagram, Facebook, or Twitter tagging @Oaknational and #LearnwithOak.

I'd love to see all of your work and don't forget there's lots of citizenship lessons on these sides, so please check all of those out as well.

It's been a pleasure.

Take care and hope to see your soon.

Bye.