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PLEASE CHOOSE ONE WORKSHOP FROM 1-5 FOR 10.30-11.30am

Email your choice to Amy Woodworth on membership@teachingcitizenship.org.uk

Primary specialist

Workshop 1: Teaching about human rights in the primary classroom

Facilitator: Helen Trivers

This workshop focuses on teaching and learning about rights in the primary classroom. Many primary schools have led the way in building human rights principles into what they do as a school, for example through participating in UNICEF’s Rights Respecting Schools Award. However teachers who have to teach across the whole curriculum may well have less subject knowledge when it comes to teaching about rights in the classroom. This workshop aims to address what is important to know and teach in order to ensure young people are well informed and supported to understand their rights and the meaning of rights.

Secondary specialist

Workshop 2: Practical ways to achieve maximum engagement in active citizenship projects

Facilitator: Jamie Kelsey Fry

This workshop will run through a series of activities that come from the frontline of youth engagement in political agency, including:

•Warm ups that are shake ups.

•Know what you are talking about (critical thinking tools that work).

•Real activist techniques in creating media stunts.

•How to be the media.

•How to use the mainstream media effectively.

•How best to use figures from the local authority.

•Authentic active citizenship projects started and finished in one lesson.

Jamie Kelsey-Fry was a secondary school teacher for 25 years in London, is the author of the Rax Active Citizenship Toolkit, is contributing editor for New Internationalist magazine, is a well known activist and appears regularly on television and radio talking about active citizenship and the journey from political literacy to political agency.

Citizenship pedagogy

Workshop 3: Planning effective assessment

Facilitator: Marcus Bhargava, Citizenship PGCE Course Leader, London Metropolitan University

We all know why assessment is a crucial element in teaching and learning, but we also know the difficulties in doing it well. Citizenship teachers also frequently highlight how difficult assessment can be given the lack of curriculum time given to the subject.

This workshop develops a number of the themes addressed by Marcus Bhargava and Liz Moorse in their article in Summer 2012’s ACT Journal. We will explore some essential principles that will both help to improve the quality of teaching and learning in Citizenship as well as improve the effectiveness of your assessment techniques. In particular, we will explore:

•some of the difficulties learners and teachers have with assessment in Citizenship and consider how these might be overcome

•why it is important to think conceptually about the learning that children will be engaged with and how that can frame your lessons and your schemes of work

•the importance of aligning intended learning with focussed learning opportunities

•why collaboration in the development and use of process success criteria helps learners and teachers alike to improve

•what your next steps might be in further enhancing your approach to assessment, using the Citizenship Exemplification of Assessment Standards Files (available at http://bit.ly/MPXyWd) as a starting point

Subject knowledge for Citizenship teachers

Workshop 4: Teaching the Death Penalty

Facilitator: Kim Manning Cooper, Amnesty International UK

Kim leads AI UK’s campaign against the death penalty and recently spent a year working for Reprieve to work on death penalty cases in SE Asia. In these roles she has met the prisoners on death row, their families, some of their victims as well as campaigners around the world. In this workshop Kim will provide an overview of current trends and issues with the death penalty and will focus on resources and strategies for debating the death penalty. This workshop has been planned to help teachers gain a greater insight into the range of issues that young people might be motivated to learn about, and the range of opportunities for them to participate in campaigns, should they want to get involved.

Practical application

Workshop 5: Improving speaking, listening and presentation skills for students

Facilitator: Jason Hall, Project Coordinator for Youth Amplified, University of Leeds

We expect our young people to present their work, give their opinions or form a reasoned argument during citizenship lessons. This assumes our students already possess the basic skills and attributes of oracy, confidence, persuasion and projection. In many cases they do not!

This workshop aims to give some background to the research and resulting resource created for the Youth Amplified

Project. Practitioners will learn how to navigate the resource and engage in the use of the sample lessons and activities. The hope is that this resource will be taken away and used by you to empower your students by allowing them to express themselves more effectively.

This is a chance to facilitate the exploration of some core skills which have cross curricular appeal. The project is in its infancy and your input will directly affect the development of the resource in the future.

Workshops 6-10 at 12.00-13.00

You will be able to choose one of these on the day

Primary specialist

Workshop 6: Teaching Responsibility through Stories

Facilitator: Debi Roberts

What do we as Citizenship Teachers mean when we tell our pupils to take responsibility for their behaviour? How can we support students to take responsibility for their actions, when so often they feel they have little choice in how they can respond or react, or in their ability to impact the outcome?

Focusing exclusively on the nature of responsibility and our relationship to choice, this workshop will share a Socratic method that can enhance student’s ability to:

•make responsible choices,

•analyse the reasons and needs behind their choices and the choices of others,

•articulate those needs clearly and empathically and thus take responsibility for themselves and, where appropriate, the communities they are part of.

Join Debi Roberts MA Ed, author of Storytelling for Better Behaviour, in this unique workshop that shares the highly regarded business methodology, TOC, and its applications to citizenship education.

Secondary specialist

Workshop 7: Cross-Curricular Approaches to Teaching About Human Rights

Facilitator: Brandon Block, Amnesty International (UK)

With potential changes to the status of Citizenship on the horizon, teachers may need to consider innovative means of delivering Citizenship and Human Rights education in schools. This session will begin by introducing two new resources from Amnesty which are appropriate for cross curricular projects and theme days. The first introduces Amnesty's "Power of Our Voices" pack on the impact and history of protest songs. Students will be encouraged to discover their own voice by developing their own protest lyrics and entering Amnesty's national protest lyrics contest. Participating teachers should not be surprised if they emerge from this interactive session with their own protest lyrics in hand. The session will also introduce “Everyone Everywhere”, our pack focusing on Cross Curricular work and drop down days. Finally we will give participants a forum to discuss what the impact might be in their school if Citizenship is non-statutory and share their own thoughts on alternative approaches to delivering Citizenship and Human Rights education in their school.

Citizenship pedagogy

Workshop 8: Using social media to promote rights and active citizenship

Facilitator: Leigh Canning

The workshop will include a “how to” guide to using twitter and Facebook. It will draw on recent examples linking social media and active citizenship (e.g. the Syrian uprising), and consider the use of social media in students’ GCSE controlled assessments (Campaigns).

We will also discuss the possibility of a network being set up, via ACT, to ensure Citizenship teachers can link effectively with one another and collaborate on projects using social media (such as Skype), and therefore bring the global aspect of learning into the classroom.

Subject knowledge for Citizenship teachers

Workshop 9: The impact of the European Court of Human Rights on the UK – what does it really mean?

Facilitator: Alice Donald, Human Rights and Social Justice Research Institute

How often have your students (and you) referred to ‘Europe’ without really being 100% sure which institution, which processes, and even which people you really mean? This area is notoriously difficult to be well informed about, and thus it can be tempting to gloss over difficult areas. This workshop will shed some light on a crucial area which is of contemporary political significance – the relationship between the UK and the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg. This subject is frequently misreported and has become highly controversial in recent months. The workshop will address some of the myths and misrepresentations surrounding the Strasbourg Court and will also provide a chance to discuss the future development of human rights legislation in the UK; for example, the Commission on a Bill of Rights which is due to make recommendations by the end of 2012 about a new UK Bill of Rights which might replace the Human Rights Act. The workshop will also discuss evidence about public attitudes to human rights and the context of devolution as it affects human rights protection in the UK. The workshop leader is Alice Donald, Senior Research Fellow in Human Rights at London Metropolitan University. This is a great opportunity to bust some myths and equip yourself with some teachable case studies to make these debates accessible and engaging to young people.

Practical application

Workshop 10 : UNICEF UK's Rights Respecting Schools Award - how to make a difference

Facilitator: Maura Hayes and Will Jackson

The Rights Respecting Schools Award (RRSA) recognises achievement in putting the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC) at the heart of a school’s planning, policies, practice and ethos. A rights-respecting school not only teaches about children’s rights but also models rights and respect in all its relationships: between teachers / adults and pupils, between adults and between pupils.

Maura and Will will show you how to use this to transform your school. See www.unicef.org.uk/rrsa

Workshops 11-15 at 14.15-15.15

You will be able to choose one of these on the day.

Primary specialist

Workshop 11: How to embed Citizenship across the curriculum in Primary Schools

Facilitator: Denise Howe, ACT North East

This unique workshop incorporates a range of perspectives from children, teachers, managers and local authority advisors. It draws together a range of contributions to explore how Citizenship can work across the whole curriculum.

•Gill Finch will talk about the ‘Deep Learning’ experiences of schools in Northumberland,

•Nicola Irving and pupils of Horton Grange Primary School will give us their own account of what Citizenship means to them,

•Dorothy Hales will explain how Citizenship is at the heart of her school and that even the youngest children can learn how they can make a contribution,

•Denise Howe will facilitate activities based on resources that those involved in education at all levels can use across the curriculum to embed the skills and values of Citizenship.

Secondary specialist

Workshop 12: Teaching about rights and responsibilities through the Judge for Yourself programme

Facilitator: Debra Southwell

Judge for Yourselves is a National Offender Managements resource that allows the audience to meet four offenders whose life choices determine their future pathway. This resource demonstrates the journey an offender will take and the guidance and support the Probation Service can offer to assist them in this. This links to the Rights and Responsibility area of the Citizenship Curriculum in that it considers the rights people have and their responsibility when making choices. The DVD Judge for Yourselves gives students the opportunity to see why offenders make certain choices, what rights they have and how the Probation service can assist them in taking responsibility. It also gives students a chance to influence this decision making and to witness success for those who take responsibility and the continuing difficulties for those who don’t.

Citizenship pedagogy

Workshop 13: The potential of youth councils for Citizenship Education

Facilitators: The St Alban’s Youth Council

Ensuring all students have adequate opportunities to practice their citizenship skills in real community settings is one of the most challenging aspects of Citizenship teachers’ work. In this workshop members of the St Alban’s Youth Council will discuss their experiences of participating in a Youth Council, and explain how this participation fosters the skills of active, responsible citizenship. They will facilitate a discussion about how Citizenship teachers could collaborate with such local groups (which are established in almost all areas) in order to develop deeper community links and promote active citizenship.

Subject knowledge for Citizenship teachers

Workshop 14: Essential subject knowledge for Citizenship teachers – Do’s and Don’ts when teaching controversial issues

Facilitator: Karl Sweeney

A practical resource-based guide to covering sensitive and controversial issues in the classroom based on the rights and responsibilities of teachers and students. Dealing with controversial issues as part of Citizenship teaching is often cited by teachers as an aspect of their practice in which they feel least supported. So this workshop aims to offer just that: support for those who need it. Areas covered will include:

•Using rights and responsibilities to set ground rules

•Legal and professional parameters which apply

•Effective tactics for managing potentially difficult or antagonistic classroom discussion

•Resources and schemes that work.

Practical application

Workshop 15: UNICEF UK's Rights Respecting Schools Award - how to make a difference This workshop is a repeat of workshop 10

Facilitator: Maura Hayes and Will Jackson

The Rights Respecting Schools Award (RRSA) recognises achievement in putting the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC) at the heart of a school’s planning, policies, practice and ethos. A rights-respecting school not only teaches about children’s rights but also models rights and respect in all its relationships: between teachers / adults and pupils, between adults and between pupils.

Maura and Will will show you how to use this to transform your school. See www.unicef.org.uk/rrsa

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