As the new editor of Citizenship Teacher, I would like to welcome all members and visitors and encourage you to keep producing exciting, focused and challenging lessons for your students. Hopefully this is where our resources can help! Over the next few months we aim to expand the available lesson plans, bring in more Key Stage 4 resources and introduce some more fast-track ‘hot topic’ lessons which you can use to respond to events in the news. The articles in this issue focus on practical ways in which Citizenship teachers can deliver the subject. Kim Richardson In this edition:
Active Citizenship – exercising choice, effecting change | Pete PattisonCitizenship education is about the political empowerment of young people, and so we must create opportunities for young people to exercise political power. This is the essence of Active Citizenship. As such, it is not an add-on to the rest of the Citizenship curriculum, but the very purpose of it. This approach is reinforced by the new secondary curriculum, which puts key processes such as advocacy and representation, and taking informed action, at the heart of Citizenship. There are two key elements to making Active Citizenship meaningful: Choice – students should have some say in the content and/or the process of their learning. This is vital in order to demonstrate coherence between our message and our method. In other words, if we are talking about the value of democracy and participation, we must reflect this message in our approach to teaching. Change – a ‘change action’ is an action that has the potential to create change beyond the classroom door. This could be something as simple as writing a letter to your MP or as complex as running a long-term campaign. Whenever young people achieve a ‘change outcome’, a tangible change in the community which has come as a direct result of their change action, there is often a significant increase in their sense of agency – their belief theat they can change the world around them. So how can we offer students opportunities for choice and change in Citizenship education? One model to consider is Plan, Prepare, Present. In this model students choose an issue that concerns them, research and build a case for how they want the issue to change and then present their case to powerful people who are responsible for it. Plan: Any active citizenship project needs an issue to address. The issue needs to have resonance with your students, so it’s important to give them some choice in it. Offer them a ‘structured choice’; choice within boundaries. The most manageable approach is to restrict the choice to school issues. For example, if planners have submitted a proposal to the council for a large development near your school, this presents a great opportunity for student involvement. Prepare: When students have chosen their issue(s), they need to prepare their case. This may involve interviewing local officials or politicians, surveying their peers, making a campaign video, doing secondary research, preparing a PowerPoint presentation. Some of this work can be done during the school day; some of it can be set as homework. Present: One very powerful method of involving all students in an authentic citizenship action is to organise a special assembly. Invite powerful people from the local community who are responsible for solving the issues chosen by your students. Students then present their views and recommendations for change to the panel of powerful people, and the panel responds. Follow up by ensuring some real change occurs, and then inform students about the change and celebrate it! Pete Pattison is the National Subject Lead for Citizenship, ACT Implementing Active Citizenship at key stages 3 and 4 | Chantal BramwellA great way to implement Active Citizenship at KS3 is to get students involved with charities and campaign groups. Students often have concerns and interests which can be harnessed, for example many are aware of the WWF or RSPCA, while others might be active in more local concerns such as animal shelters, youth and environmental groups. There are two options open to you: audit the students and establish interests and current activity or decide yourself on suitable charities / campaigns. Clearly giving the students a choice should be the preferred option since this allows them to participate in decisions affecting their learning and thus experience democracy first-hand. The easiest way to do this following your audit would be to create a list of possibilities and in true democratic style get students to vote on which possibility to adopt. Once your decision is made it’s time to get active. Initial lessons following the decision should focus on the role of charities and campaign / pressure groups within a global context, nationally and finally locally. This means you can put your chosen group into context (3g) by learning about what it aims to do and how it achieves this. Most groups have youth branches which will offer tried and tested ways for young people to play an active role; if yours doesn’t therein lies your project – set one up and pave the way for other young people to join in the action. For KS4 groups where points mean prizes awarding bodies offer a variety of possibilities, aside from GCSE Citizenship courses. The most accessible one is the Volunteer certificate from the NCFE, which is around 20 guided learning hours. Students would need to do some volunteer work, which could be done after school, at weekends or even during lessons with clever timetabling and appropriate permissions. For example, if Citizenship were timetabled after lunch and other afternoon lessons were permitted to be missed as a one off, then a student could use that afternoon to do volunteering. In order to complete the certificate activities students also do some research about the organisation they are volunteering for, how is it funded and staffed and what it aims to do. Other well used avenues include the ASDAN certificate in community volunteering or the volunteering section of the Duke of Edinburgh Award. Participating in volunteering offers students the chance to be a part of creating changes in their own communities and making a positive contribution to society. Getting certificates, awards and points for volunteering raises the students’ self esteem and the profile and status of Citizenship. Useful links:Chantal Bramwell is an education consultant, working primarily with the online inclusion group Notschool.net, and a Citizenship Teacher contributor Delivering Citizenship effectively across the curriculum | Emma ThomIn 2004, I took on the role of Citizenship Co-ordinator at Great Barr School in Birmingham, a school of over 2500 pupils. An audit of how departments were delivering the subject revealed that many staff did not understand what Citizenship was and often confused it with PSHE. I therefore delivered a whole staff INSET on all aspects of the Citizenship curriculum, from content to assessment. I used video clips and dramatic visuals on cutting edge themes to enthuse staff about the possibilities that the Citizenship curriculum can offer. I have repeated this on a yearly basis. To raise the profile of the subject I have exhibited Citizenship displays throughout the school and produced updated posters for each classroom outlining the qualities of a good citizen. I regularly disseminate interactive resources on current affairs to be used during form time and PSHE. Staff have commented on how much they enjoy teaching the lessons and how engaged the pupils are. I also take advantage of any free workshops or invitations by guest speakers and have arranged several suspended timetable events, including crisis management workshops delivered by the MoD and mock trials run by Birmingham College of Law and Eversheds law firm. I regularly feature articles in the school newsletter and on the school website to keep staff, pupils and parents abreast of all Citizenship activities. I try to encourage active citizenship where possible, especially through the school council. Pupils take part in whole school elections and participate in all aspects of school life, from interviewing prospective new staff to leading question time sessions with the leadership team. More recently, they have been involved in discussions with the local councillor about community issues. The new national curriculum has a strong focus on cross curricular planning and Citizenship lends itself perfectly to this. As part of a recent suspended timetable event myself and a colleague in the Geography department planned a day focussing on the eight United Nations Millennium Goals which include tackling HIV / HIVs, reducing child mortality and ensuring universal primary education. The day had strong links with the Humanities but also encompassed Science, Numeracy, Literacy and ICT. We started the day with an assembly to all year 8 pupils about global poverty in India and Sierra Leone. Guest speaker Barak Obama (aka Mr Morland Humanities AST) hosted the summit and offered a £500 million donation to one of the countries. Pupils firstly had to vote on the country they wanted the money to go to and were then given an ‘Apprentice’ style challenge on how best to spend the money. We split the pupils into eight teams representing each of the goals. We also had pupil press teams covering the day’s events that produced newspaper and video footage. In the afternoon summit, pupils had to justify why their millennium goal should be prioritised and were judged by guests Sir Alan Sugar and PM Gordon Brown. As a result of enjoyable and successful activities such as this, Citizenship is becoming embedded in school life at Great Barr. Emma Thom is a Citizenship and Geography Advanced Skills Teacher and a Citizenship Teacher contributor The Association for Citizenship Teaching – Citizenship in the newsACT Conference: using ICT to campaign for change, 9th June 2009 at the British Library Get £500 for your school – deadline approaching! Pirates hijack ships – how will the world respond? New Do Politics website launched Revised school self-evaluation tool Parliamentary Education Service training day at the Houses of Parliament 10th June 2009 New resources for teaching about tax! Find out more about ACT | Become a member ESSA competition – Manifesto for EducationThe English Secondary Students’ Association (ESSA) is a national organisation run by and for young people aged 11-19. It seeks to ensure that young people have the skills and confidence they need to speak out about educational issues affecting them. ESSA intends to make a students’ Manifesto for Education which it can present to policy makers and the general public to influence the future development of education policy in England. In order to gain students’ views ESSA is holding a competition for students aged 11-19 to encourage them to produce a short video (a maximum of 3 minutes) in which they outline their suggestions for constructive changes to the education system. The competition and the resulting Manifesto gives young people the opportunity to shape education policy. We hope that schools and colleges will use this opportunity to bring Citizenship to life by illustrating the connections between active participation and democratic policy development. The Manifesto will also help schools and colleges show that they are encouraging students to contribute positive suggestions in relation to educational improvement – a move that is fundamental to Ofsted’s requirement for education providers to listen to students’ views and opinions about educational provision.
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