Throughout the Autumn term, the Lower Sixth Politics Primary Ambitions group delivered exciting and engaging lessons to local primary schools.
In the first week, after returning to school in September the group started planning their lessons and considered which topics within politics to focus on. This presented the group’s first challenge. How much would the primary school pupils know about politics? Should the group focus on US or UK politics? How could lessons be made accessible and fun for each pupil? The final problem was perhaps the greatest, as Politics is an A-level subject, the majority of the group had only just begun their studies.
Luckily the group, bursting with enthusiasm for the task ahead of them, were able to choose five topics to focus on. Here are a few of the lesson titles from the module: ‘An introduction to politics’, ‘Democracy vs dictatorship’, ‘Make your own political party’ and ‘An introduction to feminism’. These topics allow the group to discuss a wide range of subject matter which provide a broad introduction to politics.
Despite initial nerves, the group have done a fantastic job over the past five weeks, delivering their first set of lessons. As teachers, we spend years learning how to engage and deliver our subject, so I have been thoroughly impressed by the way in which our sixth formers have stepped up to the challenge. A particular highlight from the last few weeks was the lesson on creating political parties, planned and delivered by Tom (Lower Sixth). We got to hear all about the issues the primary school pupils found important, amongst these were how to tackle climate change and how to prevent littering in the local area. Listening to each group present their manifestos was certainly inspiring and provided us all with lots of hope for the future!
Mary Galbraith (Supervisor of Primary Ambitions Politics)