What you might need to know
This video includes AI-generated content produced under human supervision. Script by Dr Emmanuelle Schön-Quinlivan.
Just to change things around, you could start this class with a game called table champ. Each table gets a number of European Union flags. All pupils stand up. Each table has to give the name of the country for one of the flags they have. If they get it wrong, they sit down. The last table standing wins.
If you want to dive straight into the lesson, I start it by reading a book called The Lion Inside. It gets children to think about the ways in which size matters, whether Ireland is at a disadvantage in such a big club with large countries.
Children are asked to identify who the Lion represents (it is the EU) and who the mouse represents (namely Ireland). Some children argue that the EU is the Mouse and the UK the Lion. There is no right or wrong answer as long as it is argued accurately.
We then move onto preparing the European elections we will hold in the next class. We talk about what elections are and what the difference is with referendums.
Elections are organised to elect people whereas a referendum will be about a question which matters to society. The European Parliament is composed of 720 members. These Members of the European Parliament represent 450 million European citizens. Ireland has 14 representatives. Germany has 96 MEPs, it is proportional to your national population.
Anybody who is a citizen of the EU, no matter where they live within the EU, has a passport with their national citizenship on the cover page and above it, their citizenship of the European Union written in their national language.
So no matter where you live in the EU, if you are a citizen of the EU, you can vote in the European elections if you are over 18.
Non-Irish citizens cannot vote in the Irish referendums, general or presidential elections but if they are EU citizens, they can vote in the European and local elections.
Every 5 years, we elect our members of the European Parliament. This is a good way to introduce the different jobs that you will distribute to the children to prepare for the European elections you will hold in your class next time.
Everyone should have a job, either candidate, idea-maker, poster designer, journalists or voters. Remind the children of lesson 4 and the levels of decision-making. The candidates need to think of issues which can be dealt with at the European level like Europe Day as a day off for all schools in the EU or no written homework for all primary schools across the EU or again an hour of PE per day for all primary school children, etc.
They can be creative, think of what they would like to see happening in their school, maybe use their experience on or of the student council and reflect whether this is an issue that other children in the EU would be interested in.