We have worked with young people to create these resources and training opportunities.
We aim to cover:
- Democracy for all: Identifying and overcoming specific barriers faced by SEND learners.
- How to have the conversation: Facilitating impartial political discussions in SEND settings.
- Creating accessible resources: Hands-on workshops for adapting existing school materials.
Introductory notes
The resources for each topic are below. Before you start planning lessons and teaching these topics please read these introductory notes:
Introduction
These resources were developed by the National Development Team for Inclusion (NDTi) along with the Electoral Commission.
We worked directly with a group of young people with additional needs to consider the reasons that young people they may not vote and what could be done to address this.
The reasons that young people gave can be summarised as:
- Young people are rarely seen or encouraged to vote.
- Voting and politics feel overly complicated and inaccessible.
- Registering to vote is difficult and frustrating.
- It’s unclear who is eligible to vote and how the process works.
- Access barriers exist, including ID requirements and polling station accessibility.
- Political information and manifestos are hard to understand and too long.
- People with additional needs feel excluded or unsure about support to vote.
- Young people don’t feel politics affects them or reflects their interests.
- Citizenship and voting are not taught early or clearly enough in schools.
- Trust in politicians is low, and engagement with young people is limited.
The resources that have been developed reflect the views of young people about what could be done to address this.
Using the resources
The overall aim of these resources is to encourage conversation and thinking about voting and democracy, ultimately increasing engagement with democracy.
The resources are aimed at a universal audience, so use very easy to understand language. They are designed to encourage conversation and deeper exploration of this subject, with the main outcome being that young people are informed about the voting process and feel equipped to vote, including thinking about who they will vote for and why.
They are intended to be the basis for a series of topics to be delivered for young people with Special Educational Needs and Disabilities (SEND), this could be in a specialist setting or mainstream.
The topics in this series are:
- What is voting and democracy?
- Should I vote?
- Registering to vote
- Different ways to vote
- Photo and voting ID
- Voting in person social story
- Making your own decisions
There are also a series of additional standalone activities that can be used as plenaries, assembly or registration activities, or alongside the topics.
How to use the resources
These resources are designed to be used in order from one to seven. They are designed to build knowledge and skills the point where young people are empowered and equipped to be able to vote themselves.
The resources can be delivered as individual lessons, or used as the basis for a longer term piece of work.
Some of the topics can be delivered quite quickly and some (such as the voting in person topic) would be over a longer period of time as they include visits to polling stations or setting up a mock polling station within your setting.
All of the resources include a PowerPoint using NDTi and Electoral Commission branding, teacher notes and an accompanying Easy Read guide.
Easy Read resources for young people
Teaching resources for educators can be found below.
We have also produced Easy Read guides for young people which can be found using this link.
Feedback
We are currently working with a number of educational settings to gather feedback about these resources so we can further develop them.
We would value any feedback you are able to provide, from young people and from teachers.
Please use the Slido links below to provide feedback (we have also provided a young persons Easy Read evaluation form in the resources pack)
Practitioner feedback:
NDTI/EC Democracy work – Practitioner feedback
Young persons feedback:
Additional videos
There are a range of videos on YouTube produced by the Electoral Commission which can be used to compliment the content of these topics.
Further information about the Representation of the People Bill
This Bill was published whilst our work with the Electoral Commission was underway. The Bill is expected to be in place for the next UK Parliamentary general election. It will bring a range of improvements to the democracy process in the UK and will address some of the barriers that have been raised through our work.
The Representation of the People Bill aims to modernise UK elections by lowering the voting age to 16, enabling automatic voter registration, expanding accepted voter ID to include bank cards, and enhancing candidate security.
Highlights include:
- Introducing more automated forms of voter registration.
- Lowering the voting age so that 16 year olds can vote in all UK elections.
- Expanding the list of accepted voter ID.
- Strengthening political finance controls.
- Giving candidates more protection from abuse.
- Strengthening the enforcement of political finance laws.
More information about the Representation of the People Bill can be found on the Electoral Commission website.
Tell us what you think
Educators, we are keen to know what you think of these resources, and the impact on your learners.
Please take a moment to fill in our short questionnaire.
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