Hello there, welcome to today's lesson.

Fantastic to see you today.

My name is Mr. Barnsley, thank you so much for joining me.

So today we are gonna be exploring the novel "Lord of the Flies", and today's lesson is very much an introductory one where we're gonna look at some of the context behind the novel.

All right, I think it's time for us to get started.

So the outcome of today's lesson, by the end of the lesson you are gonna be able to use context to make predictions about the text themes and its purpose.

So, there are four key words that we need to be looking out for in today's lesson.

They're gonna help us understand the text further, but they're also gonna be really useful as we talk about the text.

They are civilised, which is an advanced state of social existence.

It's social existence, where we expect people to be polite and well-mannered in their interactions with each other.

There's also the word brutality, which describes immense cruelty and savagery.

We've got the verb to persecute, and that means to subject someone to cruelty and being really unkind to them.

And then the adjective savage, which means cruel, violent, and out of control.

So keep an eye out for those and see if you can use them in your own discussions.

So there're gonna be two learning cycles today.

First, we're gonna think about the role of the rules in civilization.

This is gonna be really important for us understanding some of the main themes in the novel.

And then we're gonna start to look at William Golding, the author himself, and really start to think about why might he have created this novel.

So let's start by looking at the role and rules, and the role of rules in civilization.

So over to you to kick us off then.

What are rules? What are laws? Do you think rules and laws are the same thing? And who creates these rules or laws? All right over to you, if you've got a partner you can discuss with them.

If you are working by yourself you can think through this independently, and maybe make a couple of notes.

So pause the video and think about all these questions you can see on the screen, regarding rules and laws.

Over to you, remember to press play when you're done.

Welcome back, I heard some really interesting debates about whether rules and laws were the same thing.

Well done to those of you who were building on each other's ideas or challenging each other politely, if you didn't agree.

I wonder if you said something similar to one of our Oak pupils, Jacob, who said, "The law is a set of rules and practises that a community or country follows in order to maintain social order and keep society civilised." Remember, that word means well-mannered and respectful to each other.

"Laws are usually created by the leader of a community, this may be a government or it may be a monarchy." I wonder if you said something similar.

It seems to me that Jacob is saying laws and rules are similar, but maybe not quite the same thing.

I wonder if that's the conclusion you came to.

Right, so back over to you to continue our discussion.

Do you think all rules are important or is it that just some rules are important? Are there any rules that you believe are more important than others? And what happens if people do not obey the rules? What might be the consequences for both the individual, but also for society, if people choose not to follow the rules? All right, back over to you then for more discussion.

Again if you've got a partner you can talk through these questions with them, otherwise you can just think through this independently.

All right pause the video, give this a go and press play when you're ready to move on.

Again, I heard some really fiery debate there.

Well done for everyone for keeping that respectful, listening to each other, and challenging if you didn't agree.

Now you might have said something similar to what you can see on screen.

Actually, most of you were saying that some rules are more important than others.

Some of those rules outline social courtesy, like the social manners that we use to be polite to other people and keep society peaceful.

However, other rules and a lot of these people were saying were more likely to be laws rather than rules, they're in place to keep society civilised so that we do not become a danger to the people around us.

I could see some of you were starting to define rules and laws slightly differently there.

Well done if you said something similar.

All right, let's check how we're going then shall we.

So true or false, we have different layers of rules in society.

These rules range from social courtesies to laws.

Do you think this is true or false? Pause video, have a think, and press play when you think you have an answer.

Well done if you said true.

Let's justify that then.

Is it a, these rules and laws are put in place with the aim of making sure society remains civilised and peaceful? Or is it that these rules and laws are put in place with the aim of restricting people's freedom and autonomy? Which of those do you think is the best response that justifies that statement? Pause video, have a think, and press play when you think you have an idea.

Yes, well done if you said a.

Many people will argue that the rules and whether they are social courtesies or laws to keep us safe, are there to make sure society remains civilised and peaceful.

They're not there to try and restrict freedom and autonomy, although some people may argue that these rules do, but arguably they're there to try and create a civilised, peaceful and safe environment for everyone in society.

(mouse clicking) All right, back to you for some more discussion then.

Which of the following are rules and which of the following are laws? There are nine rules or laws on the screen, I want you to think about which of these are rules that are trying to keep us a socially polite and civilised society, and which of these are laws that focus on keeping us civilised to keep us safe? So these are, one, do not speak when others are speaking.

Two, do not steal from others.

Three, do not kill or harm other people.

Four, say please and thank you.

Five, walk down corridors, do not run.

Six, do not drive a car without a licence.

Seven, do not bully or humiliate other people.

Eight, do not text on your phone when others are speaking.

Nine, do not damage property that is not your own.

Pause the video and see if you can divide these between rules and laws, try and work this through together.

All right, pause the video, have a think and press play when you are ready to move on.

Welcome back.

It felt like most of those fit very easily into one of those two categories, although I did see people kind of going back and forth on one or two of them.

Now I want you to rank these rules and laws in the order importance.

Which one do you think is the most important that a society lives by, and which one do you think is the least? And to help you do that, I want you to consider the different consequences if those rules are broken.

All right, pause the video.

And, again, if you've got a partner you can do this ranking activity together, but don't worry if you're working by yourself, you can just make a few notes or just think through this independently.

All right pause the video, over to you, and press play when you are done.

Welcome back.

It was really interesting to hear you discussing those things.

Some of you were quite clear which were the most important rules, but once it got kind of to the middle and the bottom, I heard a lot more debate.

And, again, really impressive to all of those of you who were challenging each other in a respectful manner, by listening and then suggesting maybe a different order.

Well done.

(mouse clicking) Okay, let's continue our discussion.

I want you to think about what does a civilised society look like to you.

What would you expect to see in a civilised society? Things I want you to consider.

How do you want people to behave? How should people treat one another? And how should people feel living in this society? All right, discuss this with a partner if you've got one or think through these questions independently.

Pause the video, have a think, and press play when you're ready to move on.

I heard some really really interesting ideas there.

Clearly some of you would make really good leaders.

Let's have a look at what some of our Oak pupil said, and you can see if you agree with them.

So Jacob said, in his perfect civilised society, "People have empathy for one another.

Strangers ask one another how they are feeling.

They really think about each other's emotions." And Sam said, "In my civilised society people are respectful of one another's differences.

There would be no discrimination." I wonder if you said something similar to what either Jacob or Sam said there.

Right, over to our first task then of today's lesson.

I want you to think about, if you could choose five and only five rules for society to live by, what would make society your idea of civilised? What would the five rules be? I'm going to write a list of these five rules independently.

You may wish to use the following sentence starters.

Citizens should not.

Citizens may not.

Citizens will not.

All right, why don't you pause the video and I want you to think if you were a leader in society, what five rules would you want society to live by? All right, pause the video.

Over to you, time to get creative.

Welcome back, I could see that was a real challenge just trying to get it to five main rules.

Okay, we're gonna do some feedback now, and we're gonna do this through a discussion and a debate.

(Mr. Barnsley clears throat) So if you're working in a larger group, I want you to get into smaller groups now.

If you're working by yourself, just hold on for a minute and I'll explain what you can do slightly differently.

All right, so once you are in your small groups each of you is gonna present your five rules to the rest of your group, in turn.

As a group you've now got to narrow all of those rules down to just five clear rules per group.

So your task is to debate and negotiate with one another which five rules do you want to take forward as a group.

Remember to respectfully disagree with someone you might say something like this, "I see where you are coming from and I agree that that issue is important, however, what about X, or have you considered Y?" Okay, if you're working independently now's the time to find someone else who you can share your rules with, and you've got to justify your reasons to them.

But tell them, if they don't agree with you they can disagree with you, and you should try and convince them.

All right, time to pause the video.

Give this a go, try and justify, debate and negotiate.

Best of luck, remember to press play when you're done.

Welcome back.

I heard some really great debate there, and really well done for those of you using those sentence starters to help you be respectful, even in disagreement.

Is there anyone who'd like to share their group's five rules? If you do, please pause the video, share them with the rest of the group, and let's see if the rest of the group agree.

(mouse clicking) Right, it's now time for us to do a little bit of self-reflection, thinking about the discussions that we've had.

I want you to carefully consider the following questions.

How did you work together as a group? Did everybody have the same idea or different ideas? What difficulties did you face when narrowing your rules down just five, as a group? And what advantages did working as a group have? All right, pause the video.

Time to do some self-reflection, press play when you are done.

Okay we've done some excellent discussions so far, and now I want us to start thinking about William Golding, the author of "Lord of the Flies".

So the novel's title is "Lord of the Flies".

Which words from these title do you recognise and what do they mean to you? What might this text be about? Pause video, have a think through these questions independently or in a pair, and press play when you're ready, when you've got some ideas you are willing to share.

Welcome back, some really nice ideas there.

Let's have a look at some of the things that you might have said.

So you might have said something, you might have zoomed in on that word Lord, and you might have said that this is someone in a position of leadership or authority.

And so you might have started predicting that this might be a novel about someone with authority, someone taking the lead, taking charge.

You might have also zoomed in on this word flies and thought about them as being quite unpleasant creatures.

They seem to get absolutely everywhere.

So you might have started to say.

"Well, maybe this book might have some unpleasant themes about, be about something or someone unpleasant, and something that is quite widespread or gets everywhere.

So you might have made some similar predictions to Lucas and Sophia.

Of course, you might have made some slightly different predictions as well, and that's absolutely okay, as long as you are justifying it using the clues that you have and, in this case, these are keywords like Lord and flies.

Well done.

So "Lord of the Flies" was published in 1954.

What significant events happened in history before 1954 that might have changed people's outlook on the world? Okay, pause the video, have a think about this, you might need to start thinking about some topics you've covered in history.

What significant events happened in history before 1954? All right, pause the video, have a think and press play when you think you've got some answers you're willing to share.

Welcome back.

You might have mentioned World War II, which began in 1939 and ended in 1945.

That was just nine years before this novel was published.

You might also have mentioned the First World War which occurred between 1914 and 1918.

So how might these two world wars have changed people's outlook do you think? Pause video, have a think and press play when you think you have an idea.

Welcome back.

Now, you might have said that after two wars people came to understand just how immensely cruel mankind could be.

So, actually after the wars this topic became a really popular one among psychologists, scientists, and artists.

They really wanted to understand how seemingly ordinary people could be driven to persecuting, treating others really badly and committing these terrible crimes.

So who do you think might have had the best understanding of mankind's capacity for brutality, do you think? Thinking back to the war, who might have seen kind of mankind's capacity for brutality? Pause the video, have a think and press play when you think you have an idea.

Welcome back.

I heard a few of you talking about those who suffered at the hands or suffered in the brutality of war, but I heard quite a few saying, "Well, actually, arguably soldiers who fought in the war witnessed that brutality firsthand on a day-to-day basis.

They would maybe have the best understanding of mankind's ability to harm and to persecute." So you might have said that, you might have said other people as well and that's absolutely okay as well.

Okay, true or false? Throughout the war soldiers grew to understand the incredible cruelty human beings are truly capable of.

Is that true or false? Pause the video, have a think and press play when you're ready to move on.

Well done if you said true.

Let's justify that statement then, shall we.

Is it that soldiers grew to understand that certain individuals were born with cruelty in their hearts, but thankfully ordinary people did not seem to possess this brutality.

Or as it B, this was a topic that interested scientists and artists alike.

People want to understand what motivated such cruelty, and in what circumstances people would behave in this way.

Pause the video, have a think and press play when you think you have an answer.

Yes, well done if you said B.

The thing about war is that many of the people fighting in war, many of the people who behaved in such cruel ways were very ordinary people, whatever ordinary might mean.

And so, war and the brutality of war really made people question, what has happened to make people behave in this way? What circumstances caused people to behave in this way? So a really interesting topic of discussion at the time the novel was published.

So what do we know about William Golding then? Well, he was born in 1911 in Cornwall, England and he was an English teacher before the war, before the Second World War.

He joined the Royal Navy in 1940 and he served in the Second World War until it ended in 1945, and then he went back into teaching.

He retired from teaching in 1962, and then he died in 1993.

What I want you to think is what impression do you get of Golding from these details? What aspects of humanity might he have been interested in? Why don't you pause and have a little think, and press play when you are ready to continue.

Some really interesting ideas there.

Obviously lots of you honed in on the fact that he was a soldier, so he would've experienced the brutality and cruel acts of humanity firsthand.

I saw lots of you focused on him being a teacher as well, and you might think of teachers as people who are kind of giving back to the community, wanting to help and support develop and nurture others.

So some really interesting impressions that you might be getting from Golding here.

Let's check to see how we're getting on then.

Which of the following statements about William Golding are true? Is it A, that he died during World War II? Is it B, that he was a primary school teacher? Is it C, that he served in the Royal Navy in World War II? Or is it D, that his "Lord of the Flies" was published in 1954? Pause video, have a think and press play when you think you've got the right answers.

Well done if you said C and D.

We know he served in the Royal Navy and World War II, and he survived, and we know he published his book in 1954.

He was a teacher but not a primary school teacher, he taught English at secondary school.

So "Lord of the Flies", the novel that we are gonna be reading, is set against the backdrop of World War II.

The novel tells the story of a group of British children, all boys, who following a plane crash become stranded on an uninhabited island.

Now the novel explores the various children's different approaches to trying to establish, trying to create, a civilised society so they can all survive.

Through the novel Golding explores this question, what circumstances does it take for a person to become savage and cruel? Where can we see then the influences of Golding's life's experiences in this novel? Right, pause the video, have a think, look at that summary again, if you need to, reread it and think about what can I see about Golding's own life experiences in this novel? Pause the video, give this a go and press play when you're ready to continue.

Welcome back, some really interesting discussions there.

I could hear some of you mentioning Golding's life as a teacher, and therefore you'll have worked with school boys, and so maybe he's seen how school boys interact on a daily basis and he wants to kind of reflect that in his own work.

Lots of you talking about his experience as a soldier as well, and being exposed to the cruelness of brutality of war and really thinking about those topics that were really prevalent for psychologists and artists trying to work out how do good, ordinary people, what circumstances lead them to behaving in cruel and brutal ways? So we can see already, just from this very brief summary, how Golden's life experiences are gonna influence his writing.

Okay, over to you then.

We're gonna be thinking about this question, why do you think Golden wrote "Lord of the Flies"? What do you think he was trying to aim, achieve, or gain by writing it? I want you to discuss this with a partner.

Throughout your discussion I want you to aim to do the following, speak audibly so that your partner can hear you easily, speak in full sentences, "I think that Golden wrote the novel because.

." Communicate clearly by choosing specific vocabulary, i.

e.

using keywords from the lesson today, and listen actively to your partner when it is their turn to speak.

Okay, pause the video.

If you've got a partner you can discuss with them.

if you're working by yourself this would be a fantastic time to see if there's anyone else that you can share and discuss with.

All right, over to you.

Pause the video, give this a go and press play when you're ready to continue.

Welcome back, there were some really fantastic discussions there, great job.

Okay, we're just gonna finish now with a little bit of a reflection on how we felt those discussions went.

So, I want you to use the checklist below to give your partner a what went well and an even better if for the quality of their verbal explanation.

So, you remember, your what went well is something that you think they did really, really well, and you're even better if is the target that they could do, something they could do slightly better next time to improve their discussion skills.

So, did your partner speak audibly? Did they speak in full sentences? Did they communicate clearly by choosing specific vocabulary? And did they listen actively when it was your turn to speak? For example, you might say, "I thought you spoke very confidently at an appropriate volume, however, next time it might be even better if you could look at me when I'm speaking so that I can see that you are listening actively." All right, pause the video, over to you.

Time to give your partner some feedback on their discussion.

And that's it, we've reached the end of today's lesson.

Really, really well done for all of your work, it's been great to hear you discussing in such detail and with such confidence.

All right, let's have a look at a quick summary of the learning that we have covered today.

So, we've learned that rules and laws are put in place to try and ensure that society remains civilised and peaceful.

We learned that "Lord of the Flies" was written and published shortly after World War II, and the novel is set against the backdrop of World War II.

The novel explores human beings' capacity for persecution and brutality, and Golding himself experienced the brutality and savagery of humans whilst at war.

Great job today, thank you so much for joining me.

I hope to see you in one of our lessons in the future.

Have a great day, bye-bye.

(mouse clicking).