3 Structuring your session

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Working through section 2 will have already given you some ideas on how to structure your session, based on audience size and session length.

This section provides tips on a structure drawn from the authors’ experience as educators:

  • Time permitting, it is a good idea to begin with a ‘warm up’ activity to engage your audience with your topic. This can be a simple question, for example, ‘Give three words you associate with barristers’. Alternatively, you could use a visual aid, for example, a slide with some famous legal professionals for the audience to name. You could even play a video clip to encourage discussion.

  • Use topical examples from the news to illustrate the points you are making. Alternatively, use examples which 14–16-year olds are likely to have come across, for example, if discussing contract law you could discuss entering into mobile telephone contracts. If discussing privacy, you could use policies on social media as examples.

  • Avoid ‘lecturing’ for longer than 15 minutes without building in some form of audience interaction. This could be a question to the audience, a quick quiz or even a game, for example, ‘guess the type of law from the picture’.

  • Time permitting, try to build in some interactive activities to check your audience has understood the key points you are making. As above, this could be via questions, quizzes or games.

  • Think about using visual props and aids to illustrate the points you are making. This could be slides, excerpts from videos or physical props, such as your wig and gown.

  • In longer sessions, use small group activities to break up the session. These could include oral discussions or even written work. Remember to factor in five minutes to explain the activity and allocate groups and time at the end for the groups to feedback on what they have been doing.

  • Time permitting, build in plenty of time for questions from the audience. You should leave time at the end, but if possible it is good to pause during the session and check for questions as you go along.

  • Leave your audience with a follow-up action or reflection to build on your session. For example, you could ask them to go away and identify a story involving the law in a newspaper or research a question about the process of training as a barrister.

  • Provide your audience with details of where to go with follow-up questions. This may be the Inner Temple website, the Bar Standards Board website or their Careers Advisor. Providing the session organiser with the details beforehand will make it easier to disseminate this information.

2 Designing your session

4 Delivering your session