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Public Sector Spending - Lesson Plan: 2 x 1 hour lessons

A series of 'off the shelf' lesson plans and resources for use in the classroom. These lessons deal with Public Sector Spending and are relevant to the following specifications:

• AQA: Module 6
• OCR: Module 2887

Aim:

These lessons look at the issue of public spending and attempt to help encourage some analysis and evaluation of different public spending proposals made by the main political parties in the run up to the 2005 Election.

Students are guided to the main parties' manifestos where they will be able to identify the main proposals of each party on public spending. They are then asked to comment on the priorities that the parties seem to be placing on these areas of spending and to evaluate how far the claims made by each party are viable.

The main assessment objectives, therefore, are analysis and evaluation skills. The main aim is to get students to appreciate that public sending claims must be associated with some form of costing related to how such plans are going to be paid for. So, the main thing to look for is the quality of the argument put forward by the student and the level of support, indicating the research that has been carried out, which accompanies the argument.

Learning Objectives:

At the end of the lessons, students should be able to:

• Demonstrate an understanding of the meaning of the term 'public sector'
• Identify three components of the public sector
• Identify the main areas of public spending activity
• Demonstrate the ability to select appropriate information from a body of text
• Present evidence of analysis and evaluation skills through the presentation of a written comparison of public sector spending plans and comment on the priorities and viability inherent in such plans

Resources:

• PowerPoint Presentation - Public Sector Spending [269 KB] (basic version also available for quicker download [112 KB])
• Mind Map - Public Sector Spending
• Activity - Public Sector Spending
• PCs for research
• Cuttings from newspapers/magazines of public sector activities - emergency services, defence, schools, health, etc.

Lesson Structure:

Lesson 1

1. Hand out the selection of newspaper/magazine cuttings. Ask students to group them into some form of classification (the students should decide on the classification). (10 minutes)
2. Get students to feed back and discuss the various classifications. Explain that all the cuttings can be clustered under one classification - public spending. (10 minutes)
3. Introduce the subject of public spending by showing the PowerPoint Presentation - discuss issues arising during the Presentation. (15 minutes)
4. Give out the Activity, explain the task and the process and set students on task. (20 minutes)
5. Review main outcomes of the lesson and remind students of the tasks in the next. (5 minutes)

Lesson 2

1. Remind students of the structure of the lesson and the main learning outcomes from the Activity. (5 minutes)
2. Set students on task - the work can be done individually or in pairs. (30 minutes)
3. Bring students together to discuss the outcomes of the research and discussions. (20 minutes)
4. Review main learning outcomes. (5 minutes)