You already know workers have rights. Today you are reflecting on the flip side: what you are responsible for when something unsafe or undignified is happening, especially if you are the youngest person in the room.

Plenty of seventeen-year-olds stay quiet because they do not want to be difficult. This lesson is about writing the actual message you would send, and naming who it goes to and why.

Before you write anything, take a position on five claims about employee responsibilities and raising issues. Do not look anything up. Mark where you honestly stand on each one.

Employee responsibilities cover three things that sit beside your rights: looking after your own health and safety, looking after the people around you, and protecting dignity at work. Raising an issue is part of that duty, not a bonus for brave people.

You will look back at one or two of these positions when you justify your recipient later in the lesson.

Read Aoife's message about a repeated wet-floor hazard in a café (a classroom scenario, not a real employer). Label each marked phrase: what happened, when it happened, the clear ask, why this recipient, or vague and weak.

When the class is ready, reveal the model and notice where you disagreed. A strong message does four jobs: names the fact, pins the time, makes one clear ask, and chooses the door that can actually open.

Doors you will practise today: your supervisor for day-to-day floor and team issues; a safety representative when a health-and-safety hazard is structural or keeps returning after you raised it; the Workplace Relations Commission when internal routes have failed or the issue is a serious unresolved employment-rights, equality or bullying complaint. For dignity and harassment patterns, many Irish workplaces also name HR or a dignity-at-work contact as the internal route before the WRC. Pure safety enforcement outside the employment-rights route can involve the Health and Safety Authority.

Open your Employee Responsibilities document in the Strand 1.2 folder. Using the classroom scenario below, build the message as you would actually send it, then copy the finished version into your document.

The case (fictional workplace): You are 17 and work Saturday shifts at North Quay Sports Store. For three weeks a senior colleague has been copying a younger staff member's accent in the stockroom when managers are not around. Last Saturday two other staff laughed along. The person being copied went quiet and left early. You are not sure the floor supervisor has seen it. You want it to stop without turning the stockroom into a war zone.

Your message must include: what happened and when; one clear ask; who you are sending it to (supervisor, safety representative, or Workplace Relations Commission); and one line on why that recipient rather than the other two. Look back at where you stood on the opinion line, especially on going straight to the WRC and on whether raising a dignity issue is part of the job.

For dignity patterns like this, many workplaces also name HR or a dignity-at-work contact as the internal route. If you choose supervisor or WRC for this exercise, say why that door still makes sense here.

Save the message in your document under a clear heading. The goal is to protect the person and stop the behaviour; the portfolio needs to show fact, time, ask, recipient and why.

If this case feels close to something real: talk to your guidance counsellor or a trusted adult before (or instead of) sending any workplace message. For workplace dignity and rights advice you can also contact the Workplace Relations Commission or Citizens Information. Do not put real classmates' or real local employers' names in the portfolio copy.

When you finish, swap with a partner for two minutes and check the four required parts are present. If you still have time, add a short follow-up note under the message: if this recipient ignored you twice, which door opens next and what one sentence would you add?

Stay with your Employee Responsibilities document. With a partner, read only for the four required parts: what happened and when; one clear ask; named recipient; one line on why that door rather than the other two.

Mark anything missing in a short checklist under your draft. If your first version had no next-door note, add two or three lines now: if the first recipient ignored this twice, which door opens next, and what one sentence would you add? Use your opinion-line positions on supervisors versus the WRC to defend the choice.

This is still reflecting: you are testing whether the message you built would actually work, not starting a new topic.