14 ideas for teaching using the 2015 General Election

1. TV Debate 1
• Contrast 2010 with the 2015 proposals
• Why are they different?

2. TV Debate 2
• Recreate your own TV debate in your class
• Students research different parties, their policies,
manifestos & election pledges in advance
• Could use as a hustings as part of a mock election

3. London Leaning
• Students investigate…
• Why do voting patterns look like this in London?

4. Prime Minister’s Questions
• Like a hot seat
• Class creates questions for the ‘PM’ – about policies and track record of
the coalition etc
• Rotate the PM
• Set up the class like the House of Commons
• Have specific roles which mirror Parliament – e.g. leader of the
opposition, deputy PM, shadow cabinet etc

5. Predict the Papers
• Examine the media’s role in the
election
• Can the Sun say ‘it won it’ ever
again?
• Examine evidence which shows
the power of the media, e.g.
– Readership
– Usage patterns
– Influence of ‘new’ media, youtube
etc
– Political leanings

6. Back to the Future
• Students go back in time to contrast Britain now with
Britain in 2010
• Students could be given different areas to examine
which mirror government departments: education,
health, economy, home office, culture/media/sport,
defence, foreign affairs

7. Race to the Seat
• As individuals, in pairs or in groups, students pick/are allocated a
prospective parliamentary candidate for their constituency
• They plan a campaign to get them elected, including:
– Media messages to give out (positive, reactive or negative?)
– How much they will spend on flyers, posters, door-knocking, a website and
online presence
– How they will use volunteers
– Which hustings invitations they will attend (etc)
• Students have an imaginary budget to run the campaign. This presents
them with various ‘opportunity cost’ choices they must make.
• Students could send their campaign ideas to the actual PPCs!

8. WHY OH WHY?
• Students investigate why the election happens in the way it does. E.g.
– Why first past the post, not proportional representation?
– Why do we vote for an MP, not a prime minister or president?
– Why do we have an election on one day?
– Why do we have to vote in person or by post, not online?
– Why do we have self-funded & not state-funded parties?
– Why do we have a general election every 5 years, not more often?

9. Can’t Vote 2015
• Students investigate why 16 or 17 year olds are
not allowed to vote in the general election in
May

10. Won’t Vote 2015
• Students investigate whether people should
bother voting in the May general election.
• Students research for and against arguments
• Finish with a question-time style panel with
panellists arguing for and against voting

11. Every vote counts?
• Students examine whether every vote will count in the
May 2015 general election.
• The investigation will touch on… electoral systems (FPP
vs PR vs AV etc), ‘safe’ seats, target seats, party funding…

12. Mock election
• Conduct a mock election with students standing as if
they each represented given political parties
• Conduct radio phone-ins to test their Q&A abilities
(other students can text in questions or call in)
• Hold a hustings
• Hold a real vote, with the rest of the class/year/school
involved
• How could you build active Citizenship into it?

13. Political Party Project
• Students create their own parties focused on improving the school
• First students learn how actual political parties work and campaign
• In their parties students divide up responsibilities as a party would
– e.g. for education (quality of lessons, behaviour etc), health
(school meals, related policies), defence (school security),
immigration (admissions)
• Students create manifestos & campaigns
• Can be run as a whole year group event – each party is presented
to each class, winning parties from each class go forward to a year
group assembly and election
• Could have a different year group voting
• Winning party could get to present policies to SLT / School Council

14. Community Question Time
• Students work with you to organise a community
question time during the election campaign
• All the PPCs for the school’s constituency are invited
• Parents/carers, teachers and students are invited
• Students research candidates and party
policies/manifestos and prepare questions to ask on
the night