1. Bellwork What do you think today’s lesson is about?
Image of hands being held up in the air.
Image can be found at
Cartoon image of ancient Greeks holding up placards saying ‘Power to the People’.
Image can be found at
Image of Jeremy Corbyn waving after inaugural speech as new Labour Leader.
Image can be found at
Ask students these questions – what do they see in the pictures? What might they represent? What are the things that link them together?
2 mins
Image of people queuing up at a ballot box
Project: Political Ideologies. School: Chalfonts Community College, Buckinghamshire. Date: September 2016

2. What will I learn today? Title: What is a democracy?
LO: To investigate the notion of democracy
Knowledge:
To know how democracies work
To consider how a democracy can influence change
Skills:
To assess what a good democracy would involve
To evaluate the effectiveness of the British democratic system

3. Homework
To what extent is it fair to say that riots are never justified under UK democracy? (8 marks) Before writing your answer, it may be an idea to draw a table – arguments for and arguments against – to help you plan.

4. What do you think?
Go through the following slides and discuss with students – do they think it is a democracy? Why/why not? What would make it closer to a democracy?
Maximum 10 minute for all slides together

5. 66.1% of the population vote in the general election and a Conservative government is chosen as a result (Which did happen in the 2015 election)
66.15 voted in the 2015 election

6. Only men can vote. (This was the case in Saudi Arabia until 2015
Only men can vote. (This was the case in Saudi Arabia until It’s still the case in the Vatican City)
Image of women in niqabs putting their ballot papers in a ballot box in Saudi Arabia
This was Saudi Arabia until 2015 when the law was changed

7. Only people over the age of 18 can vote
Only people over the age of 18 can vote. (This is currently the case in the UK, but there is often talk of lowering this.)

8. There is no authoritative power and the community govern themselves-which can lead to anarchy (There are limited cases of where this works in the world, for a prolonged period).
Note – there is a lesson on anarchy later in the SOW

9. Each constituency has their votes added up to give us a winning candidate and then the constituencies are added up to give us a winning party. (This is what we do in the UK)

10. Each individual vote is counted to give us a winning party.

11. In your pairs…
Which of the democracy notions we just looked at are the best?
Which are the worst?
What do you think an ideal democracy would look like?
Discuss in pairs – this should be a short discussion as it should be pairs tying together parts of the previous class discussion and slides.

12. What is a democracy?
In your notes now write down your own definition of a ‘democracy’.
The dictionary definition is: control of an organization or group by the majority of its members
Is your definition similar/different to this one? In which ways?

13. Democracy in the UK
It is thought that democracy began with the Ancient Greeks.
The main purpose was to create a service ‘from the people, for the people’ so that all decisions made by the authorities in charge represented the views of the people in their community.
Watch the clip about democracy in the UK and spider-diagram all the ways in which people can be a part of democracy in the UK today.

14. Democracy in the UK
Although voting is currently only for people over the age of 18, there are other ways to be involved in decisions the government make.
Do you think there are enough other accessible ways?
Would you personally use them?
Does this make the UK a good or bad example of democracy?
During the Scottish Referendum in 2014 young people aged 16 and 17 had the vote

15. An uprising in a democracy: The London riots -2011
Read the extract on your handout and answer the questions in your notes.
Image of looting during the London riots in 2011.
Image can be found at (image 4)
Follow up with some feedback – the aim of this task if for students to question whether democracy works for all in the UK. Bryn Phillips clearly thinks that the younger generation are losing out and not engaging with democracy as they could. The idea of thinking we can therefore justify the riots is important – if we can justify it, are we saying that violence is sometimes OK?
Image of rioters in Tottenham in 2011 with building on fire and riot police.
Image can be found at

16. What have I learnt today?
Write down what you think an ideal democracy would involve, using the following key terms from today’s lesson in your answer:
Voting
Change
Uprising
Society
Challenge: what in the UK represents a good democracy? What needs changing?