Understanding local democracy
Teenagers
,
Citizenship
,
Literacy
,
PSHE
,
ICT
This session is aimed at key stage three pupils (11-14). The session aims to increase students understanding and interest in local democracy, by thinking about issues that concern them in their local area and how they might raise their concerns with the local council.
Learners are able to identify services, and to evaluate the quality of services in order to play an active part and to make critical choices.
This activity offers students the opportunity to investigate a local issue that concerns them. After a quick class brainstorm on likes and dislikes in their area, students working in small are to select or to be allocated an issue to investigate further and then prepare a presentation highlighting their issue.
The individual group presentations are marked so the strongest one can be used as the focus for an actual campaign. Parts of this activity require access to a computer room with an Internet connection, to enable students to access their local council and newspaper websites. If there is time, students could also carry out a survey in the local community to gauge opinions about their issue, otherwise students could be asked to do this in their own time.
The strongest presentation could be used as a basis for an actual campaign by the whole class, time permitting.
Assessment:
There are many opportunities to asses pupil understanding of the issues, e.g. you could record discussions / role-play and score the presentations.
