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Who Decides What?

Area of Learning:Personal Development and Mutual Understanding

Learning IntentionsWe are learning to: • value the need for democratic decision making and active participation in the community;• recognize the different politicians responsible for decision making in the community; and • appreciate how the job of an MLA helps us by making decisions that keep us safe

Statutory RequirementsThe online and class activities will contribute to the following statutory requirements:

Personal Development and Mutual UnderstandingTeachers should enable the children to develop knowledge, understanding and skills in:

Strand One: Personal Understanding and HealthHow to sustain their health, growth and well being and coping safely and efficiently with their environment.

Theme 4a*: Safety• Develop a pro-active and responsible approach to safety.

Strand Two: Mutual Understanding in the Local and Wider Community• human rights and social responsibility; and• playing an active and meaningful part in the life of the community and being concerned about the wider

environment.

Theme 9*: Learning to Live as Members of the Community• know about the importance of democratic decision-making and involvement and the institutions that

support it at a local level; and• know about the range of jobs and work carried out by different people.

*Personal Development and Mutual Understanding Progression Grid (Key Stage 2) can be downloaded from the KS1&2 section of the Northern Ireland Curriculum website at: www.nicurriculum.org.uk

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Cross-Curricular Skills &Thinking Skills & Personal CapabilitiesFollowing the online and class activities will provide the opportunity to develop the following skills and capabilities:

Thinking, Problem-Solving and Decision-Making

By completing the online activity, the children have the opportunity to:

• identify and order patterns and relationships through a range of strategies such as grouping, classifying, reclassifying, comparing and contrasting; and

• show the ability to use memory strategies to deepen understanding and comprehension.

Communication: Talking and Listening

Working with Others

By sharing their ideas in the Starter Activity and working in groups to design a public safety message, the children have the opportunity to:

• listen to and take part in discussions, explanations, role-plays and presentations;

• show that they can work in different roles in a group and take responsibility for appropriate tasks; and

• understand and learn to respond to feedback.

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Overview

In Who Decides What? the children scroll around a community scene and guess which politicians, from different levels of government, make decisions about issues affecting our daily lives.

The Starter Activity asks the children to think about places they value in their community. It explores the importance of democratic decision-making and the role politicians play.

The Follow-Up Activity focuses on how MLAs help us. The children role-play the jobs of a Minister/MLA, creating and presenting a public safety message for the community.

Starter Activity

Ask the children to imagine that they are a celebrity in their home town. The children should decide what they would like to be well known for. Would they like to be a politician – First Minister of Northern Ireland, or a scientist, like the local STEM heroes: http://www.nicurriculum.org.uk/stem/stemheroes. Perhaps they would like to be an international footballer, win a talent show to become a famous singer, be a Nobel Prize winning writer like Seamus Heaney, or an actor like Liam Neeson?

The children receive a call from a film crew making a programme about their rise to fame. The Director wants to visit places that have been important to them in the community where they started off. The children should choose three places to bring the film crew. Examples might include the local football field, swimming pool, youth club, school, park, library, farm, beach or river. They should draw these places onto the film strip in Resource 1.

Related Learning Resources

The Year 5 Thematic Unit: Being and Belonging helps the children to become aware of the community in which they live. This Thematic Unit is also linked to the Years 5/6 Ideas for Connected Learning (ICL) – Where I Live.

Being and Belonging and Where I Live can be downloaded from the KS1&2 section of the Northern Ireland Curriculum website at: www.nicurriculum.org.uk

As a class, ask the children to share the places they have drawn on their film strip. Discuss why the places they have chosen are important to them, developing the conversation using the following prompts:

1. A) How many other people in the community use their important places? B) What changes or improvements would they like to make to these places?2. Who is responsible for taking care of their important places?

Use the examples the children have given to consider what would happen if all the people using their important place, for example the classroom, wanted to make their own changes. To illustrate this, ask the children for suggestions on what colour the classroom walls should be painted. How would they agree on who decides? If one person was selected to listen to everyone’s ideas and get joint agreement on the final decision, do they think this would be a fair – or democratic – way to decide?

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Explain to the children that adults vote for politicians, whose job it is to listen to the community and make democratic decisions on their behalf. Their responsibilities include making decisions about places that are important to the people of their community.

Online Activity

Use a whiteboard to display Who Decides What? from the Primary section of the Northern Ireland Assembly Education Service website. Click on the “View Map” button:

Use the map to show that there are four different types of politicians making decisions about the important places in our community. They work at different levels of government. This can be as far away as Europe or closer to home like the Northern Ireland Assembly:

New Words and Phrases

• Local Councillor• MLA• MP• MEP

• Local Councils• Northern Ireland Assembly• UK Parliament• European Parliament

Write a mixed-up list of job titles and the name of each level of government on the board. Ask volunteers to draw arrows to match the correct politician to the correct level of government.

Get the class to look at the map again: • Which politicians work closest to home? • How is that helpful to the local community?

Recap on the children’s suggestions to the Starter Activity question: who is responsible for taking care of their important places? As they now know that different politicians make decisions about places in the local community, they can use the Online Activity to guess who decides what.

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In the Online Activity, the children scroll around the community scene to discover 25 places that politicians make decisions about. When they find a highlighted symbol, they should click on:• the symbol to view the related issue; • the politician they think makes the decisions about that issue; and• the buttons at the top of the pop up screen to review Information or Help with instructions on how to use

the activity.

You may wish to use the Information screen with the class to pick out examples of the areas different politicians decide on. Discuss why they think the politician responsible is the best person to decide about that area.

Related Activity

The Primary section of the Northern Ireland Assembly Education Service website contains other multimedia resources which may be related to this activity:

Who Are Your MLAs?Use the map to find out who your MLAs are and which constituency you live in for the Northern Ireland Assembly elections.

Follow-Up Activity

Recap on Who Decides What? Now the children know which politician to ask if they need help with their important places in the community. Contacting the right politician can influence decisions because they will know what you think.

MLAs (Members of the Legislative Assembly) are the politicians who work at the Northern Ireland Assembly. Our MLAs can help us by the work they do. One of the ways they do this is by being involved in public information campaigns to promote safety messages, for example road safety, knife crime prevention, firework, farm, sun, fire and water safety. Campaigns have included the Walk to School initiative from DOE.

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Ministers, who are MLAs appointed to take charge of Government Departments, decide what campaigns are needed to promote safety. All MLAs will be keen to promote these messages in their constituencies. MLAs can bring issues to the attention of Ministers and ask them to run a campaign to raise awareness of a safety issue.

Work with the children to create a Mind Map* about any safety campaigns they are familiar with. What do they remember about the campaign? Prompt questions may include:• How was the campaign delivered – was it on TV, an internet game or a poster? • What was the key message? • How was it communicated? For example, a snappy slogan using rhyme, rap or song?• What colours, characters or graphics were used? • What made the message stand out – bright colours, fun or unusual characters?

It may be helpful for the class to evaluate examples online or in print:

Suggested Resources

Tales of the Road: http://talesoftheroad.direct.gov.uk/THINK! Road safety information: http://think.direct.gov.uk/Rethink Waste: http://www.rethinkwasteni.org/Fire Safety Campaigns: http://www.nifrs.org/fire_safety.php Stay Farm Safe: http://farmsafe.hseni.gov.uk/Get a life, get active: http://www.getalifegetactive.com/campaigns/campaigns

The children should imagine that they are a Minister listening to the class’s discussion of the public safety campaigns. They have just been given a budget to design a new public safety message.

In groups, the children should work together to decide:• the issue they are going to create a safety message for;• the message/slogan to use in their campaign; and• if the campaign will be delivered as a poster, television advertisement or internet game.

The issue or range of issues chosen may relate to other areas of study, for example Road Safety. For a television advertisement or internet game, they should create a 3–6 shot storyboard to illustrate their idea. Posters should be designed on one large sheet.

When ready, the groups should nominate a member of the team to role-play the Minister launching the new campaign. The Minister should lead the group in presenting their safety message to the class. Other members of the group are the MLAs who have come along to support the campaign. They should also contribute to the presentation of the message. After each group presents their ideas, ask the class to feedback on how the message has been helpful to them.

If suitable, the safety messages can be displayed on the classroom wall.

*Active Learning and Teaching Methods for Key Stages 1&2 booklet can be downloaded from the KS1&2 section of the Northern Ireland Curriculum website at: www.nicurriculum.org.uk

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Resource 1: I’m a Celebrity!

My Important Place 1: ________________________________________________

My Important Place 2: ________________________________________________

My Important Place 3: ________________________________________________