Getting started on UK politics- In the News Speed Dating

Here at tutor2u we love the speed-dating approach to student knowledge sharing. The introductory activity outlined below gives new AS politics students the chance to get to know one another, as well as ensuring they are up-to-speed with the political news stories from the summer.

Suggested activity instructions:

Start by allocating each student a different political news story from the summer - their task is to spend half an hour finding out the background to the story, and any juicy details, along with definitions of key political terms relevant to the story. Some suggested stories include:

• The Green Party electing joint leaders
• The attempt by Labour to bring back elections for Shadow Cabinet positions
• The "March for Europe" rallies held across the UK in early September
• The Labour Leadership contest
• Reaffirmation of the UK's "special relationship" with the US
• The G20 summit in China
• Theresa May's Cabinet meeting at Chequers to discuss Brexit
• Resettlement of Syrian refugees in the UK

Once students have completed their research, they then have 3 to 5 minutes with each member of the class (one-to-one) to share their findings - you may need to play around with the timings depending on the length of your lessons.