Democracy
Street KS3 classroom activities
Democracy Street can be used in the classroom to get your students thinking about connections between Parliament and their local area.
Use the suggestions in this pack to get started!
Discover a parliamentarian
1. Find a street
Use the Democracy Street app to discover streets that share a name with someone who is connected with Parliament (a parliamentarian), in the area around your school.
2. Research
Ask your students to do some research on this parliamentarian. They might want to find out:
· What was this person’s role? E.g. were they a Member of Parliament or a member of the House of Lords?
· Which years did they spend working at Parliament?
· What was happening in Parliament during those years? For example, did Parliament pass any historic new laws (Acts) that are significant today? You might like to think about laws that gave voting rights to more people or improved rights for ethnic minorities or introduced welfare reform.
· Did the parliamentarian have a connection to your local area? Did they ever live there or attend an important event there?
· Are there any other interesting facts about their life and work?
To help your students, the app contains detailed information about four hundred people who have streets named after them. They can also find information on our partners’ websites (see the links under ‘supporting information’ below) or do some additional research online.
3. Create a fact file
Ask students to create a fact file about the parliamentarian, containing key pieces of information from their research.
4. Consider the evidence
Get your students thinking about the evidence they have used in their fact file. What sources did they use to find out about the Member of Parliament? Did they use the information in the app? Or perhaps they used another website?
Ask them to think about how we know about the lives of figures from the past. How can they be sure that their information is correct? And was there any information they couldn’t discover?
Some of the streets in the app share a name with a politician, e.g. Castle Street shares a name with Barbara Castle, however, there isn’t always a connection between the politician and the street. Do your students think their local street was named after a parliamentarian or do they think the street name has a different origin?
Students could discuss their findings in small groups and then present what they learned to the rest of the class.
5. Find a local hero
Ask your students to do some research to find out whether there are any nearby streets named after local figures who brought about change for people living in the area. Who were they and what did they achieve? Why was a street named after them? Students could write a short biography of their chosen figure, exploring their connection to the local area.
6. Name a street
If your students could name a street after anyone, who would they nominate? And why?
Challenge
Set your students the challenge of finding a street with a democratic link in their local area – or further afield if they want to – that isn’t listed on the app. Do they pass any streets on the way to school with an interesting history? Or can they find any by
doing some research?
If you do find any missed streets you can email and they will be added to the map.
Get your street on the map!
Follow these quick and easy steps:
1. Find a street in your neighbourhood that relates to democracy.
2. Go to the street, take a picture of the street sign or of something that you connect with the street name. Ask your school to upload it to their social media channels (e.g. Twitter) using the hashtag #DemocracySt.
3. Artist Jon Adams may use your images as part of new art works that will be displayed in Parliament from 16 – 22 November during Parliament Week 2015.
Resources for research
· Search the National Archives collections for records of historical figures with streets named after them: discovery.nationalarchives.gov.uk/
· Search the National Portrait Gallery’s collections for portraits for key figures:
www.npg.org.uk/collections/search/advanced-search.php
· Find out about former Prime Ministers at GOV.UK:
www.gov.uk/government/history/past-prime-ministers
· Browse biographies of former Members of Parliament at the History of
Parliament Online: www.historyofparliamentonline.org/research
· Discover the living heritage of Parliament: www.parliament.uk/livingheritage