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Teachers » Quick Mock Election » Lesson 2
Lesson 2
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LESSON 2
Resources: Ballot papers with the names of the candidates and parties on them, a ballot box (a real one could be obtained from the local council, one could be made by pupils in a Technology class or you could just make a simple one out of a cardboard box!), Poster and Logo Cue Cards.
Download BALLOT PAPERS.pdf
Download POSTER & LOGO.pdf
Explain that each party is going to have time to prepare a short speech explaining why people should vote for them. Each party also needs to design a poster and logo. There will then be time for each party to deliver their speech and present their posters.
Get each party to allocate tasks to certain individuals. One half should focus on designing campaign materials – a logo and a poster. Give out the Poster and Logo Cue Card to help them. The other half should focus on writing a short speech (around 2 minutes) which explains their manifesto pledges and tells people why they should vote for them. Again, you may wish to allocate jobs yourself if you think that allowing pupils to choose their own roles may be problematic. [25 min]
Allow each party to come to the front of the class, deliver their speech and present their poster and logo. [20 min]
Extension activity: Following each speech allow people to question the candidates in a Q&A session.
Give out the ballot papers. Explain to the pupils that they are not allowed to vote for their own party – if they are caught doing so their vote will be invalid! If you want to ensure that there is no cheating in this respect you could number the ballot papers in advance so that you know which ones have been allocated to each party. [In a real election people may of course vote for their own party, but if pupils were allowed to do this and did so (as would be expected) it would not make for a very interesting result, as all groups would poll roughly the same number of votes!]
Tell pupils to place an ‘X’ next to the candidate that they wish to vote for and place the ballot paper in the ballot box. [5 min]
Count the ballot papers and announce the result! [5 min]
NB/ If there is a tie then a name should be pulled out of a hat to decide the winner – this happens in real elections!
Plenary: Reflect on the election process – is an election like this a good and fair way of deciding who represents us? (With KS4 pupils you may want to discuss alternative political systems, eg dictatorships and also the idea of free and fair elections, comparing with other countries). Will pupils vote when they are old enough? Why? Why not? [5 mins]
Don’t forget to submit your results afterwards on the Elections section of the Y Vote website!