Year Dot in the Classroom
Belonging, Identity and Friendship
Objective: To reflect on what creates a sense of self & to develop skills of empathy towards others; to identify some of the challenges facing those leaving home for the first time
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Suggested activities:
- Students use the downloadable template to complete this activity. Around the outside of the figure they write down all of the people and groups that are important to them and help them to identify a sense of self. On the inside they write down how this sense of belonging makes them feel ('SELF’ )
- Students share their ideas with others in the group
- How easy is it to make friends? Students make a list of the challenges when making and keeping friends
- How much more difficult would this be if you had a condition like Aspergers Syndrome? (Teacher to give some details of the syndrome – www.researchautism.net has an excellent, user friendly description)
- Watch clips of Josh Muggleton’s life as he uproots to go and start university at St Andrew’s University (clips most useful: intro video, 08.07.08, 25.08.08, 05.10.08, 21.11.08, 27.11.08)
- Do the same activity that they did for themselves at the beginning of the lesson for Josh
Activity 2Aim High!
Objective: To evaluate the difficulties of pursuing a goal or dream; to recognize that help and guidance are an important part of realising ambitions; to practice letter writing skills for an unfamiliar and formal audience (Functional Skills)
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- In pairs look at the story of a Year Dot Participant of your choice and answer the following questions:
- What challenges is he/she facing during this year?
- What is she/he doing to try to overcome these challenges?
- Who has he/she had to contact to ask for help, support or advice?
- Individually students decide on one goal they would like to achieve or start working towards. This can be anything from a career aspiration, to a sporting dream, to a creative ambition
- Students to share this with rest of the class
- Students research their ambition and choose one person/organisation/group they would like to contact to ask for help and advice about realising their goal and write a letter. This is a real life activity so ensure that all students draft letters and use peer assessment to help improve them
- Send them and see who gets a reply making sure these are shared with the rest of the group
Project Work: To extend this activity look at the Family Activity on this site
Activity 3Life stories
Objective: to reflect on previous experiences; to recognize the shared transitional periods during life that most people share; to consider the conventions of autobiography and to apply them to their own writing
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- Students select an autobiography to read – this could be historical or contemporary. They can be reading this over the period of time spent looking at life stories as a unit of work.
- In pairs draw up a time line of person’s life from 0 – 70 years of age. Students identify which are likely to be the defining moments during that life (rough estimations are fine).
- Pairs feedback to class and a definitive time line of a life is decided upon. This can be displayed in a variety of ways. This can also be a physical activity with the class forming a human timeline and representing the different stages of life with a tableau of each stage.
- You may also create a game using the tableau idea after a Life Time Line has been agreed. Groups depict a tableau of a specific transitional point and the rest of the class guess where that may be.
- Watch a selection of videos from the Year Dot project depicting some of the important changes /decisions made by the participating Year Dotters e.g. young co - carer Nicolette Ester’s profile film shows her talking about leaving her family to go to boarding school
- Look at the selection of autobiographies chosen by students and compile a list. Students report back on each of their selections.
- Students choose a definitive moment in their lives to date or make up a fictional character that is facing a transitional period in their lives. Write an autobiographical entry to a diary or a script to a dramatic monologue (see Alan Bennett’s Talking Heads for ideas) depicting this moment
Extension Activity: Students may also film a performance of this monologue
Project Work: Get students to choose a Year Dotter and follow their story closely for a period of 6 weeks. Students keep a ‘stress graph’ on their chosen Year Dotter and plot the levels of stress/pressure experienced during this period. Students present their findings back to class, explaining the different moments of stress/pressure/what happened at those moments and how the Year Dotter dealt with it. Students may also illustrate their findings with video footage.
Activity 4Emotional Literacy – Remember – Everyone is Different!
Objective: To begin to consider that challenges that important transitional moments in life can bring; to consider the emotional impact of these changes and to learn to manage a variety of emotions; to recognise them and why our actions are sometimes as a direct consequence of these feelings; to recognise that everyone is different and copes with challenges differently
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- Select one of the Year Dot 15 and show a selection of their video diary entries – recommended stories for this activity include Jamal Haynes (dad of two), Josh Muggleton (Aspergers Syndrome sufferer) and Sam Phripp (dealing with issues about his sexual identity)
- After watching and a short session on the kinds of emotions we are likely to experience in our lives, students in groups/pairs discuss their different reactions to the following emotions:
Anger; Disappointment; Frustration; Depression; Fear; Sadness
- Students to select one of the emotions and to describe an episode/experience where their experienced their selected emotion. Students to share these experiences in class if they want to /or write it down
- Remember mood charts in Primary School? Split class into 6 groups, allocating to each group one of the above 6 emotions. Ask each group to devise an action plan on dealing with their designated emotion. Create a poster with two headings:
What to do? and What not to do?
- Support students’ work with ideas and suggestions i.e. alcohol is actually a powerful depressant and whilst the short term effects might lift you a little if you are feeling depressed – ultimately alcohol is likely to make you feel a lot worse
Project work: What support systems exist in your college/school? How effective is it? Plan a Student Support Network in your school/college that enables students to talk to other peers. How would you organise it? Draw up a ‘Mission Statement’ which outlines the purposes and aims and objectives. Create a Poster to advertise the service and use the Emotion Posters you created in the class activity.
Take it a step further: See your school/college council about really starting a peer support organisation in your school
Activity 5Flies on the Walls
Objective: To consider different forms of documentary making; to understand the conventions of documentary making
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- Students set task of watching one documentary before class and also to research the history of documentary making focusing particularly on any landmark documentaries or prominent documentary makers
- Feedback research to class explaining preferences and discussing the documentaries watched by the class
- In pairs students list different styles of documentary styles and decide on the conventions and features of each of these styles. Feed back to class and decide on a definitive list for each documentary style.
- In class watch one episode from the first series of Year Dot
- Select 2 recent documentary series. Decide on the style of each of these series and how they are different/similar to the Year Dot Project.
- Compare the Year Dot project with Channel 4’s The Family. Make comments about the differences in the following:
Style; platforms used; intended audience; format; effectiveness
Extension Activity: Write an analysis of the different styles of documentary using the Year Dot project and one other documentary of your choice
Project Work: These activity ideas can be used as the basis for a much bigger project on Documentaries for GCSE Media Studies, the Creative and Media Diploma or AS/A2 Media Studies i.e. looking at the work of individual documentary makers such as Louis Theroux, Nick Broomfield, Dawn Porter or looking at different documentary series i.e. The Bodyshock Series; Cutting Edge etc.
Activity 6Spirituality & Music in Religion
Objectives: To explore how we centre ourselves and feel calm; to explore the role of music in our lives; to investigate the role of music in religion to draw similarities and differences between faiths
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Suggested activities:
- Ask students to discuss where they like to go when they are stressed out (structured paired discussion).
- Ask them to discuss in their pairs what they do in that special place.
- Scaling activity at the back of the room – from very important to not important ask students to stand where they belong on the scale regarding the importance of music in their lives.
- Discuss why music is important for some people.
- Watch excerpts from Sheila Lord’s Year Dot site and try to work out why music is important to her.
Extension Task: Students research the role of music (special songs used in worship, instruments, festival music, and dances) in Christianity, Hinduism, Islam, Buddhism, Judaism and Sikhism. They should then try to conclude their findings by commenting on similarities and differences between these faiths in terms of the importance of music in the religion.
Differentiated Activities
Gifted and Talented ActivityThe Importance of Family
Objectives: To define what the term ‘family’ means for the 21st century
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Suggested activities:
- Look at the plans of each of the Year Dot 15.
- In groups discuss the different types of family structures that can be found in modern day Britain. What changes have happened over the past 60 years in the structure of the family?
- Students research the following issues and decide as a class what are the current debates surrounding the following issues:
Single mothers; teenage pregnancies; divorce; family breakdown; children
- What are the opinions of the group? Do they think that popular beliefs about the above are true? Some newspaper articles about any of the above issues would be helpful. Also the story of Kizzy Neal, who had her son at the age of 13, is well worth researching, as are Channel 4’s documentaries on young mothers.
- In groups students make a tableau of their understanding of the family – these may well be different
- Each group showcases their tableau to the class where the class tries to analyse their meaning before the group explains its tableau.
- This leads to a discussion regarding what a family is. Class come to consensus on a definition statement of the term family
- In pairs answer the question what is the function of a family?
- Feedback ideas about the ‘function’ of family and decide on a definition statement
Extension Activity: Debate the following motion:
The breakdown of family life is responsible for society’s ills
SEN Activity Jamal’s Story
Objective: To understand the difficulties facing young parents; to understand the different kinds of responsibilities that there are within a family
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- Students watch a selection of videos and video diaries of Year Dot Participant Jamal Haynes and look at the goals Jamal has set himself for the year
- Using the following headings, in pairs, students list the issues facing Jamal:
work being a dad relationships responsibilities
- In pairs students discuss the following questions:
- What is Jamal most worried about?
- What is Jamal trying to achieve?
- What are Jamal’s main problems and how could he solve them?
- Students feedback to the rest of the class and in the same pairs write down as many ideas as possible at ways young families could be helped
- Feedback these ideas to the class and vote on the top 5 most effective ways to help young families
Extension Activity: Students write a blog entry for Jamal offering their personal opinions and any advice they have to offer. These could be posted
Family ActivitySet Your Own Goals!
Activity
- Decide on 3 things you would really like to achieve over the next 12 months.
- Organise these 3 goals in the following order:
A short term goal – something that can be achieved by making small adjustments within your life (suggested time schedule – 3 months)
A medium term goal – something that might take longer and require a greater adjustment (suggested time schedule – 6 months)
A long term goal – something that will take a more persistent effort over a longer time frame and might require a major change of life style and choices on your part (suggested time schedule – 12 months)
- Set yourself a timetable for achieving the goals you have set. What do you need to do to make your goals achievable? What support do you need to establish in order to try and reach these goals? Who do you need to speak to in order to help you achieve your targets and keep to your schedule?
- Speak to family members/friends – is there anyone you know who you think would benefit from joining you in setting their own targets
- Keep a written/video diary, blog or social networking profile to record your efforts to achieve you goals
- At the end of the time schedule you/ your family member/friend set for yourselves, assess what you managed to achieve out of your 3 goals. What was successful/not successful and why?
Project Work: Prepare and present a report a on your experiences using a variety of presentational techniques
- Level:
- 14 – 19yrs: KS3; KS4; Post 16; S1-6
- Curriculum Relevance:
- Careers; Citizenship, PSHEE; SRE; Functional Skills; Media Studies and many more
- Benefits:
- illustrates other people’s experiences in setting personal goals and trying to achieve them; coping with setbacks and finding help from their friends, families and online networks
