ACT : Professional Association of Citizenship Teaching

A teacher recently said to me "My head teacher is a Citizenship education sceptic. What can I do to convince them that Citizenship is about school improvement and not a burden on teachers, the timetable or pupils?"

Millicent Scott

Lets start with the facts; Citizenship is a statutory subject at KS3 and 4, and may get a subject inspection by Ofsted. Student voice is part of a school’s self-evaluation form. Now go on to share the information below in an SLT or Governors meeting.

At the heart of new initiatives in education lies Citizenship; just look at the Big Picture diagram from QCA. The new secondary curriculum aims to develop young people who are successful learners, confident individuals and responsible citizens.

Citizenship builds Personal, Learning & Thinking Skills. Citizenship is an Opening Minds competency. Student voice is at the heart of Personalised Learning.

Citizenship can contribute to the major school policies, for example the Duty to Promote Community Cohesion. Making a positive contribution is central to Every Child Matters.

It is s a subject in its own right. There has been a short course Citizenship Studies GCSE since 2002, AS & A levels from 2008, and there will be a full course GCSE from 2009.

Citizenship pedagogy builds motivation and engagement and happiness! Research shows that students feel most ‘intellectually engaged’ when they have a say in their learning and do things that had an impact on the real world. The ‘World Expert on Happiness’ says happiness is “a sense of participation in determining the content of life.” It also supports human rights and democracy: “All children have the right to a say in all decisions that affect them.” so says Article 12, UN Convention on Rights of the Child.

It improves standards. A study of 12 ‘participative schools’, concluded that they achieved higher GCSE results and lower numbers of exclusion. A school in south east London achieved a 33% improvement in GCSE results after adopting Citizenship as a whole school initiative.

Citizenship’s Role is central in in transforming education. It is a subject which demands specialist teachers like all other subjects. It has a pedagogy charactised by student voice and action and it is more than a subject with the potential to transform the school ethos.

Chris Waller and Pete Pattisson, ACT

How do I organise meaningful active Citizenship projects that involve a whole year of students?

It can be daunting organising active Citizenship projects with a whole year group but it can also be incredibly satisfying. The key to making this an entitlement for all students in a year group is to build these opportunities for action into schemes of work – if they are only run as after-school clubs you’ll never be able to involve everyone. Active citizenship should not be an add-on to Citizenship; it is the very essence of Citizenship!

There are lots of manageable actions students can do, here are some ideas:

Inviting decision makers from the local community into school to watch presentations by students

Making presentations to Senior Leaders or the School Council

Running campaigns in school (you can use a prominent notice board to publicise them)

Organising a Citizenship assembly (with relevant visitors) where all students are given the opportunity to give their opinion (make sure they are prepared)

Writing a letter/email to a local MP, company or organisation

Ideally, the schemes of work should have three components; students voice, students action and student reflection. The most compelling learning experiences in Citizenship:

- Give students a voice or choice in the learning process and/or content (but I wouldn’t recommend you leave it completely up to them!). For example, you might offer students three local issues to investigate, of which they must choose one.

- Give students the opportunity to DO something that aims to have an impact outside the classroom. Sticking up posters on the classroom wall will not help children feel politically powerful. You will only feel politically powerful by having a powerful experience of acting politically. That’s why the examples above are so important.

- this action builds the students’ sense of agency

- Give students the opportunity to reflect on how effective their action has been and why.

As with many things you’ve got 2 options; start with something that you are comfortable with, or jump in at the deep end and learn from your mistakes! Don’t forget that you can model your own learning to the students.

One project that I have found works well is ‘Your streets, Your say’ where students reflect on and find examples (taking photos) of things they like and don’t like about where they live. You could set this as homework over a holiday and get them to carry out a survey of family and friends who live in their area. If the students put this into a powerpoint presentation you could then either invite a local councillor in to watch the presentations or email/send their findings.

Give it a go and if you have any good ideas for manageable and meaningful active Citizenship projects don’t forget to post them on the ACT website.

Alice Carlisle, East Midlands RSA

I am thinking about assessment using the new Citizenship curriculum, should I use the 'Working Towards', 'Working At' and 'Working Beyond' statements or start using the new levels? Also my headteacher wants me to start giving levels for citizenship this year, what should I be doing?

Assessment and reporting arrangements for citizenship are changing. The introduction of the revised secondary curriculum includes a single attainment target for citizenship described as level descriptions. The first statutory teacher assessment where schools will assess pupil performance at the end of key stage 3 against the level descriptions, will take place during the summer of 2011. This is the first year in which the first cohort who have been taught the revise curriculum complete key stage 3. You can start to use the 8 level scale to help frame assessments whenever you wish, especailly with your new Year 7. You can use the previous descriptions for two more years with the current Year 8 and 9 but it may be useful to start using the 8 level scale across the key stage.

Reports to parents about pupil's strengths and areas for development in citizenship, continue to be required for pupils in each year of key stage 3 and key stage 4. From 2011, the annual report for year 9 pupils will also need to include the results of a level related judgement about pupil performance in citizenship. There is no statuary reason to do so before the summer of 2011.

It is important to build a full picture of each pupil's attainment in citizenship. During the course of the key stage, teachers will assess pupil progress to gather information about how pupils are doing. It is not necessary to record or report a level for each pupil at these points, however some schools choose to do so. Other schools may prefer to keep records using qualitative descriptions of progress and attainment. The end of key stage 3 teacher assessment should be based on a range of types of evidence of pupil responses to citizenship learning activities and active experiences.

To prepare for the changes to assessment and reporting arrangements for citizenship, schools need to:

ensure citizenship teaching staff are familiar with the new arrangements for assessment and reporting and the standards for citizenship set out in the level descriptions

plan regular opportunities for assessing citizenship across the key stage, to gather information about pupil's citizenship knowledge, understanding and skills

develop clear assessment criteria or success criteria for teaching and learning activities that are used for assessment

establish a baseline of knowledge, understanding and skills for pupils beginning KS3

develop mechanisms to gather and record evidence from a range of learning contexts

build an approach to moderation, in particular for end of key stage judgements made by staff across a cohort.

To view the new curriculum including the revised programmes of study for citizenship and the new level descriptions visit www.qca.org.uk/curriculum and click on subjects for the citizenship page.

Liz Craft, Citizenship adviser, QCA

I've been teaching Citizenship for a few years now, but am moving to a new school where I've now been asked to teach PSHE as well! I'm a bit concerned about how best to deliver these two together as I've always heard that Citizenship is best taught as a discrete subject. I know a lot of schools deliver the two together, but I've never experienced it before. Can you advise me?

Millicent Scott

These two subjects are often thrown together, but usually for managerial reasons, rather than academic ones. They have a different pedagogy, a different purpose and different outcomes. They also have very different content. While there are overlaps with Citizenship (and clever planning would see some spiralling i.e. looking at an issue from a personal then a political perspective), there are just as many overlaps with other subjects. Therefore, it is important to work towards discrete curriculum time for Citizenship. The first step may be to separate Citizenship and PSHE by for example, teaching Citizenship in Term 1 and PSHE in Term 2. Or by teaching a Citizenship module followed by a PSHE one. This can be done without any changes to the timetable or staffing. It is very important to be clear with colleagues and students about this separation and to name it correctly, clearly and consistently. Make sure your colleagues and students can name and explain the difference. If you use exercise books, give out different ones in different colours for each subject. Make your display boards distinct too. Report on the subjects separately and discuss them separately at parents’ evening. And then, having strengthened the identity of Citizenship, work towards finding discrete curriculum time for it.

Pete Pattisson, National Subject Lead for Citizenship

I am wondering whether to introduce the Citizenship GCSE course to my school. I think it will help raise the profile of Citizenship, but am worried about over-loading my kids with another exam. Please help!

Thanks for your question. We get asked this very often, so the answer should be useful to lots of Citizenship teachers. Below are the main advantages and disadvantages of the Citizenship GCSE. Note that three exam boards currently offer the Citizenship Studies GCSE as a short course. The full course will be available from September 2009.

Advantages:

• it raises the status of Citizenship among teachers and students

• it offers students another GCSE

• 40% of the course is coursework, offering students the opportunity to participate in authentic active Citizenship

• if Citizenship is going to transform education and classroom practice, it needs to happen within existing structures, including exams. The challenge is not to develop Citizenship as an add-on to the curriculum, but as an integral part of it. The GCSE enables us to do that.

Disadvantages:

• the syllabus is large and there is a danger that you get bogged down in ‘getting through it’, rather than offering engaging and meaningful opportunities for genuine Citizenship learning.

• the emphasis on the exam may undermine the real purpose of Citizenship; to empower and enable young people.

• if you do not have specialist Citizenship teachers, it may be badly taught, which may be worse than it not being taught at all.

Pete Pattisson, National Subject Lead

I am responsible for co-ordinating Citizenship in my school, but I am not a specialist and neither are the group of teachers who are supposed to teach it. Where do I start?

Ian Livingstone

Join the Association of Citizenship Teaching and ask us to lead training with your team. You could also send some of your team on one of the CPD Citizenship Certificate courses, which are run for free (or at a very low cost) in many parts of the country. You could also purchase a copy of the Citizenship CPD handbook “ Making sense of Citizenship” Find out if there is a PGCE course in Citizenship near you, and take on one of their trainees – they should have a lot of up-to-date ideas, and enthusiasm. Then persuade your Headteacher to begin recruiting a team of specialists.

However, you can still create compelling learning experiences with a non-specialist team. Start by focussing on just one set of lessons that enable students to take some form of action based on their learning. At the very least, this could involve students writing a letter to local councillors about an issue that concerns them, and then ensuring the local councillor replies, or better still comes to an assembly to respond in person. A scheme of learning with a bigger challenge (and reward) might involve students going on a short tour of the local area investigating a particular aspect of it, for example traffic safety. This can be done within one lesson – everyone has roads near their school! Students could then develop a set of recommendations based on their investigation and present these to the highways officer from the local council at assembly. These type of mini-projects are manageable, even with a group of non-specialist staff, and provide young people with a compelling Citizenship learning experience which has the potential to raise their sense of agency. See New Secondary Curriculum.

Pete Pattisson, National Subject Lead for Citizenship