Law is not only about stopping crime. People also use it when a rule, a refusal or a practice will not shift any other way. Today you read one account of that happening, and work out what changed, what it cost, and who else was affected.

It is also costly. The person or family who brings a case spends time, energy and often money. Hearings take a long time. Appeals add years. There is a real risk of losing. So when you read a success story, notice both halves: the wider change, and the price paid by the people who pushed it.

Open the interactive activity. Allow a minute or two for devices to settle, then read the full account once without rushing. Use the glossary at the top if a term is new. Answer every question from the text. Closed questions have a checkable answer; short answers should use detail from the story, not ideas you brought in from outside. If you finish early, use the stretch prompt on screen.

Talk these through as a class. Nothing is typed or saved.

1. Which detail in the account best shows that the law changed something for people beyond one family?
2. If the family had stopped after the letters were refused, what would likely still be true on that road?
3. What would you want somebody to understand about the cost before they called a case "easy" or "quick"?
4. Why can one family's formal complaint change a rule for people who never took a case? Use detail from the account.

You can now:

• explain how a formal equality complaint or court case can change a practice for people beyond those who brought it
• pull from a purpose-written account what someone was trying to change, which route they took, how long it took, and what was different afterwards
• name the personal cost that often sits behind a public win

Law is one lever citizens can use when other routes have failed. It is powerful, and it is rarely free.