hello everybody and welcome to our introduction to a-level law for AQA for the Learning Academy in this video what we're going to do is take a very brief overview of the subject of a level law the basic specification and the topics that we are going to be covering so ultimately this is our first lesson on the subject of a-level law some of you may have come across our videos on the lore Academy in the past those videos are dedicated more towards undergraduate and post-graduate studies so those of you who are at University who are doing university studies this will cover a lot of the same content in terms of what we've covered on the Law Academy because law is law things are quite easy to re reproduce But ultimately the the difference between this series and that series is this series is going to follow the AQA specification so you're going to only have access to information and you will only be able and you're only going to be learning information on this this um series uh that you need to learn for the specification and in some cases um that you need to learn for the specification because the specification hasn't updated uh with the law uh quite yet so for those of you who are studying a-level law it was it is much more um advised at least for me to uh for you to watch these videos on a level law rather than the Law Academy videos like I said we'll take an introduction to the subject of a level law we'll outline the subjects we're going to examine in this series of lessons and just talk about some of the core modules and some of the more optional modules that you have to think about as well now for those of you who are studying a-level law you don't necessarily have to do law at University or become a lawyer in order to do a level law so this is a a little uh almost a pep talk for those of you who are maybe at GCSE and thinking about doing a-level law um a level law is an incredible L useful way for you to get a number of basic academic skills that may or may not equip you for further study at University if you are somebody who wants to study law at University uh then a level law could be a very useful option for you okay I would suggest that it is not uh requirement for those of you who want to study law at University I did law at University and I never needed and I didn't do a level law um did a level histories and politics and philosophies instead so there you don't need to do law at a level in order to be a lawyer at University equally you don't need to not do a level law if you don't want to do law at University if you're somebody who wants to study something else in University or not even go to university at all a level law can still be useful it will give you analytical tools it will teach you about how to uh how to how to read and how to analyze and how to and how to really deconstruct elements of academic practice it will allow you to learn a lot about how the English legal system works how the courts work how basic uh how basic crimes are operationalized how things like torts and contracts work all of which are in very important and very useful for anybody even if you aren't studying law at University now again a level law could just be a fun and interesting way to have a good understanding of the basic structure of the UK's legal system English legal system and its governmental principles okay so even if you are doing a level law for fun and you want to go and do maths at University or go and do an apprenticeship somewhere else or go and just enter into the the world of work you don't need to have uh to do a level you don't have to do law at University to do law at a level because they are different things now the study of a level law will involve at least for AQA uh the study of the following major topics so you're going to be learning about the nature of law and the English legal system this is a structural set of lessons this is a lesson set of lessons that really uh hones in and de and does a deep dive on what the English legal system actually looks like and how it is operated uh from an internal perspective the first few videos are going to be about the nature of law which is more the sort of theoretical and philosophical implication what actually is law uh what what what do we mean when we say that something is a law and something isn't a law it's not going to get into too deep of the jurist Prudential theories of law but it will get into some basic overviews of how Law relates to morality how law structures Society etc etc and then the English legal system section is going to be about the structure of the English legal system it'll be about the structure of the courts it'll be about the structure of parliament how laws are passed the various different rules that courts have to follow when they are are applying the law as well as the distinction between the criminal justice system and the Civil Justice System two different elements and then following this topic we will get into some of the substantive areas of the law beginning with the criminal law everybody should have a basic understanding of what the criminal law is the criminal law involves crime and it involves the criminal justice system it involves the punishment of crime the specific crimes that we're going to look at include crimes such as murder and and manslaughter and theft and non-fatal offenses like assault and battery and and and abh and gbh and these are very very interesting we'll talk about some of the theories of the criminal law talk about the elements of criminalization the elements of crimes so things like the actus Rees and the men's rare of an offense again all of which if you don't understand these Concepts now you will get to understand them as we go through these lessons the third major topic is probably the topic that you would be the least familiar with at least colloquially as somebody who is going from gcsc to a level this is the concept of taught now the law of taught and a t itself relates to something like a civil wrong that is remedied using compensation now what does this mean well a t um is a wrong that you do to another individual um not necessarily with intent in most cases there isn't an intent to do a t they are often because you want negligent for example uh or some kind of uh way like that and you don't necessarily have criminal punishment attached to it but instead you have to pay compensation so negligence for example if I was uh the owner of a shop and I was to clean the floors and they were very very wet and slippery and I was just to allow people to walk into my shop and then go and break an arm as they slip over I've been negligent because I've not I've not presented and put down proper uh precautions to to ensure that these people aren't injured or at least to ensure that they know of the risks of going into my shop I wouldn't necessarily be arrested and charged with a crime for doing such a thing but I could be sued in taught for uh for the damage that is caused and have to pay compensation or have to pay damages by way of compensation that's what the law of T essentially is it's very very important and we'll get to what some of the basic principles of T entails uh in that section and then the penultimate section will be the law of contract a contract is a very easy thing to understand it is an agreement between two parties and the essential elements of a contract include agreement include a thing called consideration there also has to be an intention for the parties to actually enter into an agreement and for that agreement to be legally binding we'll talk about all the rules of contract the distinction between uh uh the different types of uh establishments of contracts the relationship between a contract and the third parties so people who are are not involved in the contract who may be impacted by the contract as well as the breach of contract and the ending of a contract and then finally we'll talk about human rights human rights law now human rights law is divided in this for a level law at least into two uh major strands it is uh firstly discussed in context to the European Convention of Human Rights or the European court on human rights which is the Strasburg Court which the UK is still a member of despite leaving the European Union because there are separate institutions but then Also it talks about the application of the echr in the demestic legal system so the domestic legal system of the United Kingdom with the passage of the human rights act now these are modules which are divided into core modules and some optional modules so the core modules are the first three the nature of law in the English legal system the criminal law and the law of T which means that every single a QA a level law student is going to have to learn those three topics so that's going to be essentially the topics for everybody now depending on which school or college you or six form you go to will depend on which optional module you will be taught you will be taught either the law of contract or the law relating to Human Rights and so not all of you will be learning from both of these Co optional modules and instead you'll be picking one or the other at the end of the day because we're covering as much as possible aqaa level law for this particular topic we will cover all five topics and it is essentially up to you to pick and choose which of the optional modules you want to look into like I said at the start the lore Academy the separate channel that we have that uh where I where I teach law um is mainly for undergraduate and postgraduate study so for those of you who want to go and do an LLB or an llm at University and so so and so this series of lessons is specified to the AQA specification for a level law and those videos are far more advanced if you feel like you want to go and see some far more advanced content then go over and have a look and check it out but don't rely on those videos where you could rely on these instead so that's just a basic disclaimer uh and I will see you everybody in the next video where we start to discuss the nature of law and the English legal system