Lesson video

Hi everyone, my name is Miss Patel and I am a year six teacher from a tiny town in the Northwest of England called Blackburn.

Now I'm really excited for this unit of work because we get to learn lots about each other and the different communities that we're a part of.

First of all, congratulations, you have been elected the Mayor of Oak Town and it's your job to represent our town and help to improve the lives of its constituents.

Now, this word means the people who have voted for you to be elected as the Mayor of Oak Town.

Now, it's my job to guide you to understand the key aspects of our society, to ensure that you're ready to undertake this role.

By the end of this lesson, you will understand what community is.

You will explore different types of communities.

You will consider the benefits of being a part of one, and you'll create a coat of arms to represent all the different communities that you're a part of.

And as always, your parents or carers will work to share your work with us on social media.

But before we start, let's take a look at what we need for this lesson.

So in this lesson, you will need a pen or pencil, and some colouring pencils.

You'll need some paper.

And of course you'll need to work in your office or any quiet space will do.

If you're missing any of these items, press pause now, and you can press play again when you're ready to continue.

So this is a breakdown of our lesson today, what is a community, different types of communities, benefits of being a part of a community.

I'll introduce the task and I'll show you what a good one looks like.

What is a community? Now I've defined a community as a group of people who live in the same place or share common characteristics or interests, for example, the same religion, the same job, or even the same football team.

Now, communities play such an important role in every aspect of our lives.

We're often a part of them without even realising.

We have communities in our friends and our families, our neighbourhoods, and so many other places.

We find communities in the sports teams that we support and even the foods that we like to eat.

Having a sense of a community unites us all.

Can you think of any communities that you might be a part of? So let's move on to different types of communities.

So I've separated these into four different categories, starting with place.

We have interest, action and practise.

Now place is an easy one because it's a group of people living in the same place, the same town or the same city.

Interest is when a group of people share the same interests or passions, they enjoy doing the same thing.

For example, being a part of a book club.

Action is when you have a group of people trying to bring about the same change.

So it's a group of like-minded people that believe in the same cause.

This could be wanting to see change, following the Black Lives Matter movement, it could be fighting climate change, or even raising money for a particular charity.

And finally, we have practise.

This is when you have a group of people in the same profession, which means job, or people who do the same activities.

Now a common one for this is religion, but if you aren't particularly religious or you don't follow a religion, that's okay.

Perhaps think about a team that you're a part of where you all carry out the same activity or believe in the same thing.

So why does all of this matter? What are the benefits of being a part of a community? Now being a part of a community gives us the chance to be a part of something greater than ourselves.

It gives us a sense of belonging and support.

It can give us the opportunity to meet new people, to help others and to reach our goals.

Ultimately it helps to ease stress and feelings of loneliness, which help to make us feel safe and secure.

Okay, so your task today is to create a coat of arms, which represents the four different types of communities that you can be a part of.

So coats of arms is a shield with symbols or images that represent a person or a family or a group.

For example, this is a coat of arms that represents the royal family of the United Kingdom.

And this is a coat of arms that represents the town that I'm a part of, so Blackburn with Darwen.

Our design today will include two main components.

We'll start off with the shield which will be divided into four sections.

So we have place, we have interest, action and practise.

Now below the shield, I've left a little bit of space for a motto or a phrase about your beliefs.

So this could be a sentence or a couple of words or something that you can really relate to or something that you feel passionate about.

Now, it doesn't necessarily have to be something that you've come up with.

It could be a quote from somebody famous or even the lyric to one of your favourite songs.

This is my WAGOLL, it's an example of one that I've made.

Now the beauty of these is that there are not two coats that will be exactly the same.

We're all a part of so many different communities, and this is a celebration of all of them.

So as you can see, I've split my shield into four different parts.

Now, for place I've included lots of different elements of the place that I'm from, you have the badge of my local football team.

Now Blackburn's also within the county of Lancashire so I've included a symbolic Lancashire Red Rose.

Now I'm proud of where I'm from and including it on my shield shows that it's a big part of my identity or who I am as a person.

Now, for interest, this section represents my love of reading.

I actually have an English degree and I love reading.

I love books.

So I've included some of the titles of a few of my favourite books that I like to read with my year six children.

Perhaps you've read some of them too.

Now for action, this represents a cause that I'm passionate about.

There's been lots in the news recently about the Black Lives Matter movement.

And it's something that I feel strongly about.

So I've been reading and watching and educating myself so that I can help by contributing and supporting within this community too.

Finally, for practise, I have chosen to represent my religion here.

It's is a big part of who I am and another aspect that I'm really proud of.

For my motto or my phrase at the bottom, I've written cultivate kindness.

Now, in this context, the word cultivate means encourage.

So putting lots of kindness out there into the world.

I really hope you got to learn lots about me today.

And I would love to see the communities that you are just as proud to be a part of.

If you'd like to, you can ask your parents or carers to share your work with us on social media.

I would love to see it.

And I'll see you again really soon, bye.