📚 Unit Plans → 🌍 Community Action Project → 📖 Lesson 3: Design a Response
Years 9–10 Social Studies

Design a Response — From Understanding to Plan

Lesson 3 of the Community Action Project — ākonga turn their research into a realistic plan aimed at the level that actually holds the decision.

🕘 Lesson at a Glance | Te Hōtaka

Do NowWhose job is it — council or government?⏱ 5 min1 · The right levelLocate the decision⏱ 15 min2 · Open the optionsFour ways to respond⏱ 20 min3 · Weigh itConsequences and feasibility⏱ 25 min4 · Plan on a pageSteps, roles, success measure⏱ 20 minExitName the first step⏱ 5 min

Lesson Overview | Tirohanga Whānui

Understanding an issue isn't the same as knowing what to do about it. In this lesson each rōpū turns the research brief from Lesson 2 into a plan. First they work out where their issue actually sits — some things are decided by the council, but core responsibilities like schools, hospitals, roads, and public safety are decided by central government, along with the public spending that pays for them. A response aimed at the wrong level goes nowhere. Then they open up the full range of ways a group of ākonga can respond, weigh each option honestly for consequences and feasibility, and land on a plan with steps, roles, and a success measure sharp enough that Lesson 5 can test it.

Learning Intentions | Ngā Whāinga Ako

  • Work out which level of government — central or local — holds the responsibility and the spending for our issue, and aim our response there.
  • Generate more than one possible response and weigh each for its likely consequences, cost, and feasibility.
  • Commit to one realistic plan with clear steps, roles, and a success measure we can actually check later.

⚡ Do Now

⏱ 5 min

On the board, eight things: the local park · school buildings · the public hospital · the state highway · library opening hours · police numbers · rubbish collection · a new pedestrian crossing on a local street.

  1. Sort (3 min): In your book, split them into two columns — council decides and central government decides.
  2. Compare (2 min): Swap with a neighbour. Circle any you disagree on.

Teacher: don't give the answers yet — Activity 1 does that work. The usual surprises: schools, hospitals, state highways, and police are central government's core responsibilities, paid for out of public spending it decides; parks, libraries, rubbish, and local streets are the council's. The whole lesson turns on aiming a response at the level that actually holds the decision.

Activity 1 · The Right Level — Locate the Decision

⏱ 15 min

What it is: Before a rōpū designs anything, it has to know who it's designing for. Central government is the central body making decisions on core responsibilities — schools, hospitals, roads, public safety — and deciding the public spending behind them. Councils hold the local layer: parks, libraries, water, local streets, rubbish. Plenty of issues touch both.

Run it

  1. Resolve the Do Now (5 min): Work through the eight examples together and land the split: core responsibilities and the spending behind them sit with central government; the local layer sits with the council. Note the overlaps — a safe route to school might involve the council's crossing and the government's school property budget.
  2. Locate your issue (7 min): Each rōpū takes their Lesson 2 research brief and answers in writing: which level holds our decision? Which specific body or role — a council committee, a government agency, a minister, the school board? Does any part of it sit at the other level?
  3. Correct the brief (3 min): If the brief named the wrong decision-holder — and some will have — fix it now and note what changed. That correction is good research practice, not a mistake to hide.

Teacher: the most common miss is assuming everything local is the council's. A rōpū working on hospital wait times or school facilities needs to know their decision-maker sits in Wellington — it changes what a realistic response looks like.

Activity 2 · Open the Options

⏱ 20 min

What it is: Most groups jump at the first idea — usually a poster. This activity forces the options open before anything gets chosen.

Run it

  1. Four kinds of response (5 min): Introduce the frame. A response can inform the decision-maker (a letter, a meeting, a deputation to the right committee), act directly (a working bee, a repair, a fundraiser), raise awareness (a campaign, an event, a piece for the school newsletter or local paper), or join forces (link with a community group, marae komiti, or agency already on the kaupapa).
  2. Generate (10 min): Each rōpū writes at least one genuine option in each of the four kinds for their own issue — eight is better than four. Each option must name who it targets and what it would actually involve.
  3. Reality pass (5 min): Cross out anything that targets the wrong level from Activity 1, and anything no rōpū of Years 9–10 students could actually do this term. What's left is the real option set.

You'll need: the four kinds on a slide or the board. Teacher: push on "join forces" — it's the kind ākonga skip, and it's often the strongest. Someone in the community is usually already working on the issue, and adding rangatahi energy to existing mahi beats starting cold.

Activity 3 · Weigh It — Consequences and Feasibility

⏱ 25 min

What it is: Every response has consequences beyond the ones intended — a fundraiser takes weeks of effort for a one-off sum; a campaign can embarrass the very people you need on side. Ākonga weigh their top options before committing.

Run it

  1. Shortlist (3 min): Each rōpū picks their three strongest options from Activity 2.
  2. Consequence grid (12 min): For each option, score 1–3 on five questions — How much difference would it make to the people affected? Can we do it with the time, money, and skills we have? How long before anything happens? What could go wrong? Who else does it affect — and could it make anything worse for anyone? That last question matters: real responses have side-effects, and thinking them through first is part of acting responsibly.
  3. Choose and defend (10 min): Each rōpū totals the grid, chooses one option, and prepares a two-sentence defence: we chose this because… and we rejected our second choice because…. Hearing the rejection reasoning out loud is where the thinking shows.

🪶 Mātauranga Māori and tikanga boundary (local handoff required): if a rōpū's planned response touches whenua, wai, or a wāhi tapu — planting near an awa, working on land with history, anything at or near a marae — the plan must include talking with mana whenua before acting, not after. Action done with a community carries mana; action done to a community, however well meant, does not. If that conversation can't happen this term, the honest plan says so and chooses differently.

You'll need: the five-question grid on the board or a slide. Teacher: if two rōpū chose the same kind of response for different issues, pair them for the defence step — they'll sharpen each other.

Activity 4 · The Plan on a Page

⏱ 20 min

What it is: The lesson lands on a working document. One page, six boxes — this is what Lesson 4 executes and Lesson 5 evaluates.

Run it

  1. Draft (15 min): Each rōpū fills the six boxes: What we're doing (the response, one sentence, naming who it targets) · Steps in order (numbered, each with a name attached) · By when (real dates) · What we need (materials, money, a teacher email, a booking) · Permissions and people to talk to first (school leadership, whānau, a community group, mana whenua where Activity 3 flagged it) · What success looks like (something checkable: a reply received, a measurable change, attendance at an event, before-and-after photos).
  2. Stress-test (5 min): Rōpū swap plans. The reading group asks the two killer questions — what's the weakest step? and how would you know if it worked? — and writes both answers on a sticky note for the owners.

Teacher: hold the line on the success box. "People care more" is not checkable; "the board replies to our submission" or "20 kilos of rubbish off the beach, weighed" is. A weak success measure now quietly wrecks the evaluation lesson later.

Exit · Name the First Step

⏱ 5 min

Before they leave, each ākonga finishes these three sentences in their book:

  1. Our response is… and it targets… (the specific body or person, at the right level).
  2. The first step is… and the person doing it is…
  3. We'll know it worked if…

Teacher: sentence 1 checks Activity 1 landed (right level, named target); sentence 3 is the thread Lesson 5 picks up. Any rōpū whose success measure is still vague gets five minutes at the start of Lesson 4 to sharpen it.

🎯 Curriculum Links | Te Hononga ki te Marautanga

This lesson's focus: Ākonga learn where responsibility actually sits — central government holding core responsibilities and the public spending behind them, councils holding the local layer — and use that knowledge to aim their response at the level that can actually say yes.

Civics and Society — Core Connection (Phase 4 | Years 9–10)

"Government as the central body making decisions on core government responsibilities, such as schools, hospitals, roads, and public safety, and deciding public spending."

📑 See the Community Action Project unit overview for the full curriculum alignment → — Social Sciences · Civics and Society · Phase 4 · Years 9–10 (statement pulled verbatim from the live Te Mātaiaho curriculum).

📦 Materials & Resources

Everything in this lesson is teacher-prepared or student-generated — nothing needs to be bought or printed from a handout.

  • Do Now list (board): the eight council-or-government examples from the activity.
  • Four kinds of response (Activity 2): the frame on a slide — inform the decision-maker · act directly · raise awareness · join forces.
  • Consequence grid (Activity 3): the five scoring questions on the board or a slide.
  • Plan on a page (Activity 4): one A4 or shared doc per rōpū with the six boxes drawn up; sticky notes for the stress-test.
  • From last lesson: each rōpū's research brief — the plan builds directly on it.

There is deliberately no video in this lesson — the material ākonga work with is their own research. If a rōpū is targeting a council decision, the council's own website page on making submissions or contacting councillors is worth having open; source and check it yourself for your rohe before class.

📊 Assessment Framework

Assessment here is formative — the plan itself is the evidence. Against the unit's assessment rubric, this lesson feeds the Action + Impact dimension (a realistic, well-aimed plan) and continues Research + Understanding (the corrected decision-holder). The project's summative assessment sits across the whole six-lesson arc.

What to look for, mapped to the learning intentions

  • Right level (LI 1): in Activity 1, does the rōpū name a specific decision-holder at the correct level — and were they willing to correct their Lesson 2 brief if it was aimed wrong?
  • Options weighed honestly (LI 2): in Activity 3, can the rōpū defend the option they rejected as well as the one they chose? A grid where every score is 3 is a tell that the weighing was decorative.
  • Checkable plan (LI 3): on the plan page, is every step owned by a named person, and is the success box something you could actually verify — a reply, a count, a photo pair?
Quick exit read: the three exit sentences tell you which plans are aimed at the right level and ready to run, and which need five minutes of sharpening before Lesson 4 starts.
🚀 Extension Activities
  • Follow the money: for their issue, ākonga find where the spending decision actually sits — a line in the council's annual plan or a central government budget area — and note the difference between who delivers a service and who funds it.
  • The B plan: ask a rōpū to sketch what they'd do if their chosen response gets a flat no in the first week. Groups with a fallback act with more confidence, not less.
  • Precedent hunt: find one real example — from anywhere in Aotearoa — of a school or rangatahi group that ran a similar response, and note one thing that worked and one that didn't. Lesson 4 starts stronger for it.
🔗 Unit Progression & Next Steps

This lesson produces the plan the rest of the project runs on: one page, aimed at the right level, with a success measure sharp enough to test.

  1. Lesson 1 — Choose an Issue: find a real community issue worth acting on.
  2. Lesson 2 — Research and Understand: get the full picture — evidence, sources, perspectives.
  3. Lesson 3 — Design a Response (this lesson): turn understanding into a realistic plan.
  4. Lesson 4 — Take Action: do the mahi.
  5. Lesson 5 — Reflect and Evaluate: did it work, and how do we know?
  6. Lesson 6 — Share and Advocate: tell the story and push for the change to stick.

Carry the plan pages straight into Lesson 4 — the first step named on today's exit ticket is where the action lesson begins.

📋 Teacher Planning Snapshot

Ngā Paearu Angitū — Success Criteria

  • ✅ I can say whether our issue is decided by central government or the council, and name the specific body or role. (LI 1)
  • ✅ I can weigh more than one option and explain why we rejected the ones we did. (LI 2)
  • ✅ I can point to our plan's steps, my role in it, and how we'll know if it worked. (LI 3)

Differentiation for this lesson

  • Planning scaffold: offer the six plan boxes pre-drawn with sentence starters ("Our response is ___. The first step is ___, done by ___.") for rōpū that need structure; student-led groups can replace the boxes with their own format as long as all six answers are there.
  • Language / ELL: the consequence grid works fine with scores and single words; the defence step can be spoken rather than written. Everyday kupu (rōpū, kaupapa, mahi) continue in use, not pre-taught.
  • Keeping ambition safe: some rōpū will over-reach (a national campaign) and some will under-reach (one poster). Use the grid scores to steer both toward a response that's real but winnable this term.

Broader differentiation and the unit-wide framing live on the unit overview.