KS3 online teachers' package

Activities to practise skills and language, and to encourage debate in preparation for your visit.

Vocabulary

Ensure that pupils are familiar with the vocabulary used in the gallery activities e.g. environment, natural resources, renewable/non-renewable, population, voluntary migration, forced migration, monarchy, republic, dictatorship, suffrage, suffragette. Ask pupils to agree definitions for these terms.

Migration

Make a list of the places where everyone in the class was born. Ask pupils to draw a chart or a graph to show how many people were born:

• within 5 kilometres of where they live now
• over 5 km away, but still in the same county
• somewhere else in the UK
• somewhere else in Europe
• somewhere else in the world

Make a list of all the different reasons why people move:

• from one part of the UK to another
• from a different country to the UK

Ask pupils to think of all the advantages that their local area has gained from migration to it.

Government

Discuss with pupils how Britain is governed today. How is parliament elected? Do you intend to vote when you are 18? Why or why not? How much power does the monarchy have? Do you respect the monarchy?

What buildings in London are associated with both these institutions?

Debate the proposal that Britain should become a republic:

Divide the class into two and separate them (if possible) into different rooms or sides of the classroom.

Allocate the sides both for and against and appoint (or elect) three speakers for each side: one to introduce their viewpoint, one to expand and one to sum up. The other members of the class should help the speakers prepare their arguments.

The class holds a formal debate, respecting the conventions e.g. no interrupting a speaker. This can be chaired by the teacher or a pupil.

At the end of the debate, questions are put to the different speakers and then the class can vote on the motion.

Human rights

Ask pupils to make a list of all the rights they have e.g. the right to an education, the right to choose (or not choose) which religion they want to practice, the right to decent housing. Collect their ideas together and keep a copy of the complete list. Which of the rights could be termed "basic human rights"? Which of these rights would people in this country not have had in the past? Roughly how long ago do they think people gained different rights in the UK?

Are there any rights that pupils feel they don't have but that they should? E.g. the right not to go to school!

Divide students into pairs or groups and give each one or two of the rights from the list. Ask them to see if they can find out any specific information about it in the Museum e.g. the dates when any laws were made or changed, the names of any individuals or groups who campaigned for change.