ACT : Association for Citizenship Teaching

I'm beginning a research project within the field of Citizenship. Focusing specifically on Gifted and Talented students within the subject. I was wondering if there are any particular policies in place for gifted and talented pupils within Citizenship?

Or if gifted and talented are recognised within Citizenship?

Are they comparable to other subjects?

If not do you have any opinion on the matter?

We at ACT produced some work in 2008 around G and T. Citizenship education is concerned with inspiring young people towards a sense of agency; it has three powerful processes that lead it in that direction – critical thinking and enquiry, taking informed and responsible action and advocacy and representation. Citizenship is a subject that is predicated on the value of achievement and inclusion and aims to foster aptitude, interest and skills. We would say that Citizenship can contribute to extending G and T pupils through

• Promoting active participation derived from critical research

• Enabling them to take action beyond the classroom with new audiences

• Engage with new technologies to enquire, communicate and campaign

• Become citizenship advocates to address whole school and curriculum issues with governors, SLT and adults other than teachers – evaluating teaching and learning, driving campaigns within school, developing the Citizenship-richness of the school

• Lend campaigning and activist skills to the local community

• Leading peer work with younger pupils, especially those from key stage 1 and 2 settings

G and T coordinators should also refer to the advice to be found in the CfBT Citizenship pages here

http://www.newsecondarycurriculum.org/media/pdf/NCA-CitizenB11_3.pdf

Chris Waller

enter you question here...

I have applied to CCCU for a PGCE in Citizenship, I have a BA (Hons) in Child and Youth Studies (2:1) and have had experience within a school of working with KS3 and 4 students within Humanities, PSHE and aspects of Citizenship. Is there anything else I should look at before I am called to interview?

Make yourself familiar with the Citizenship curriculum in KS3/4 and also the revised Primary curriculum for the Historical, Geographical and Social Areas of Learning-you sound the ideal candidate to become involved in the subject though. Have a good trawl through our website at the news sections and show an understanding of the role Citizenship education plays in Community Cohesion and other whole school/community issues. Good luck.

Chris Waller, ACT

Can you tell us what is to happen about formally assessing pupil progress in citizenship? (APP). We've had talks by our heads of Maths and English at school who are now just starting to use formal APP grids which they colour code if students are working towards / have succeeded in etc. It looks very complicated and we have far less time to be working with students than they do (espeacially as the slot we do have is shared with PSHEE as it is in many other schools)! Is this separate to the NC levels we are already using, or backing it up? If indeed APP grids come into Citizenship at all?

Level descriptions have recently been published by QCDA to support Citizenship teachers in making these assessments. These can be found at the end of the Citizenship programme of study. It will be statutory to use these attainment targets from September 2011 to report on learners attainment at the end of Key Stage 3. This means that teachers should be collecting evidence of learning from students who started Year 7 in 2009 to help them make an informed judgement by the time they reach Year 9. Like other subjects at the end of KS3 it is anticipated that the majority of students will be around a Level 5.

It isn't necessary to start stockpiling vast amounts of students work. QCDA recommend that three to four pieces of evidence is suffice. Also keep in mind that this does not have to involve large pieces of work. Be creative with what you use to help you assess and consider how you can assess the skills students are developing. It could be a mind map, diary or blog entry,a presentation or planning notes that students have made.

The new levels need not be overwhelming. You do not have to show how students are progressing throughout all the concepts and processes. Keep it simple by choosing one concept and process to focus on. By the time students have reached the end of KS3 you will probably have covered all the the concepts and processes.

Furthermore APP statements and guidance are soon to be published by QCDA to help teachers assess pupil's work periodically between Year 7 and 9 against the Citizenship levels. This isn't intended to be another level of assessment, nor is it statutory that Citizenship teachers utilise them but they are very useful to show what attainment in each level would look like.

For more information and ideas on assessment make sure you get a copy of 'Assessment in Citizenship Education', available from ACT.

Billy Crombie, ACT Council Member & Citizenship teacher

Hello.

I am considering applying for a PGCE in Citizenship. My only fear is that if I achieved Qualified Teacher Status in this field then there would not be enough schools teaching a discrete Citizenship syllabus and I would find it tough to find a job. I therefore have 2 questions. 1) Are there really that many schools who employ Citizenship teachers? and 2) Do PGCEs in Citizenship generally qualify one to teach other subjects as well, such as Politics or History?

I am wondering whether pursuing a different PGCE course may be a better option in terms of actually getting to teach Citizenship, or indeed teaching at all.

Many thanks

Will

Thanks for this question-you will find that by looking at the Question Archive here that we have been asked about this before. Have a look at the previous answers. However, you also ask about doing another PGCE course and whether Citizenship ITT would prepare you for other social subjects. I would say yes to the latter (not History though) but you might also need to increase your subject knowledge of Politics if you were teaching this at A Level. However, generally speaking the Citizenship education PGCE gells well with teaching Politics etc in Secondary/Post-16 settings. Your question about doing another PGCE in order to teach Citizenship is missing the point; if you are serious about teaching Citizenship in Primary, Secondary or Post 16/Sixth Form then you should be doing the Citizenship education PGCE. It is the professional route into teaching this discipline. There is very positive feedback from students who do the PGCE courses in Citizenship education so I think if you are committed to the subject then get on a course as soon as you can for 2010/11.

Chris Waller

I am currently on the GTP in Citizenship qualifying in July, I have read several comments that finding a Citizenship is very hard as they are rare. After looking at the jobs available so far they seem to be right as there aren't any? Is this something to worry about, is it difficult to find a Citizenship teaching job?

This is a question we are quite often asked. Yes, finding Citizenship education teaching jobs can be hard but the jobs are there-though not always easy to see. Sometimes they are with other subjects like PSHE or RE or History, sometimes they appear en-masse and on other occasions weeks seem to go by before such jobs appear in the press. My advice is to feel confident about this and look carefully in the major job sources-the TES and Education Guardian. You did not say if you are Primary or Secondary trained-the new Primary curriculum is coming into schools and there will be a need to trained Citizenship education teachers in this sector as well.

Chris Waller

Is it likely that a Conservative Government would abolish Citizenship as a subject in secondary schools, and, if so, when would this come in to force?

I have become concerned about this following some comments I have read from Conservative MPs.

This is a very interesting question but the idea of abolishing a subject is not a core issue. Lets start with some broad thinking. All western-style democracies have some form of Citizenship education in their curriculum. Citizenship education has been a national success in terms of progress in GCSE and AS/A Level take up. Why immediately get rid of something that appears to work with young people in schools? There is no evidence that Citizenship education is unpopular with young people or dreadfully badly taught nationally and there is no evidence either that Citizenship education taken time from other subjects or damaged them.

However, I agree that many Conservative MPs have been both vague about Citizenship and also shown their lack of understanding as to what it is about and how it functions in schools. However, many are also attracted to the aim of Citizenship education- a politically literate and engaged community of young people who are ready and willing to be active citizens. One thing might give greater understanding of their thinking; that the Conservatives see this as part of extended schooling not just a curriculum issue.

I also think that any new Conservative government would not start by abolishing subjects-especially a subject they supported in the first place. Michael Gove has spoken about creating a new style of curriculum management by schools having greater powers to chosse what they want to focus on outside the core subjects-to do what they are good at. This curriculum freedom may mean that many schools continue to give Citizenship education space and time and resources because they see it as part of the way the school functions, not just a curriculum subject. If the Conservatives are keen on more and more school becoming academies and determining their own curricular direction then they will not need to abolish subjects.

The new Primary curriculum will be in schools from January 2010. It re-aligns Primary and Secondary and within the new Primary curriculum Citizenship education occupies a prominent space in the Historical, Geographical and Social area of learning. Citizenship education is not a new subject any more and schools are realising how linked to whole school and community issues it is. Citizenship education may chenge and evolve, but i dont think it will be a case of simply abolishing something. I cannot think of a subject that has ever been abolished from schooling-most simply evolve and change as does the world around them.

Chris Waller, Professional Officer, ACT

The Conservatives are unlikely to abolish anything immediately, however I suspect they may attempt to re-interpret Citizenship education to reflect their priorities. This may mean that there is less emphasis on political action and campaigning, and more emphasis on volunteering, charity work but not in a curriculum context. This is something we must resist, as it will dilute the whole purpose of the subject, which as the Crick Report said, is to "aim for no less than a change in the political culture of our country."

Finally, it's important that everyone involved in Citizenship education continues to 'make the case' for the subject at every opportunity. One of the strongest arguments for politicians is to explain that Citizenship is essentially an apprenticeship for a career in politics. Scientists would never vote to abolish science from the curriculum, so it would be madness for politicians to vote to abolish Citizenship!

Pete Pattisson, National Subject Lead, ACT

Chris Waller, Pete Pattisson

There is nothing short about the short course as far as I can see. In fact, the latest text book on the GCSE short and long course, (OCR Citizenship Studies, published with Citizenship Foundation) seems to imply that there is more content to learn in the short course than there is in the long course as there are more pages dedicated only to the Short Course than there are solely dedicated to the Long Course. And this is even when the students will only get half a GCSE for doing the Short Course! As well as that, the OCR seem to be saying that the student's own campaign will be to some extent proscribed to them rather than it being completely their free choice.

What has happened? This curriculum had originally seemed to me to be about the most exciting thing that has happened in my twenty two years of teaching. To empower young people, to teach political literacy, critical thinking, advocacy and representation, taking informed and responsible action... This was all brilliant. The curriculum document had highlighted phrases like, "encourages students to challenge injustice, inequality and discrimination", (National Curriculum 2007)

I could see easily how this subject would have an inestimably positive effect on a young person's life, academic and otherwise. I could see how critical thinking and the kinds of processes that seemed to be encouraged would help a young person improve in all their other subjects. I could even see how students who were not excelling in other academic subjects could do so in Citizenship Studies.

But this has all gone. No school, even if they have the greatest teacher in the world, could possibly think that taking on the full or the short course could make their students' lives anything other than profoundly more bogged down. There is simply way too much content. By taking on this subject, other subjects can only suffer rather than be enhanced as the students already have an extremely heavy work load as all us teachers know.

What was great about the spirit of Citizenship has been utterly ripped away. The key processes and skills will be lost amidst a mire of piles of information about governance, justice, law making etc. In my opinion, students would be far better off to be learning most of this content at a later stage in their lives and in fact, if they were engaged in the key processes and skills first, then that content would come easier to them in the later teens.

My question is this: If my school so choose, can we teach those aspects of the curriculum that we know will make a massively positive contribution to the whole school and to the lives of the individual student and leave it at that? In other words, are we allowed to teach citizenship without choosing to put our students through the hell of having to do exams in these vastly over-packed courses?

Personally, I feel let down. I feel the teeth of something great have all been removed. I wonder how many other schools have come to the same conclusions?

I sympathise with much of what you have said - I taught Citizenship at Deptford Green School for five years, and we did the Citizenship GCSE throughout. The first point of course, is that the GCSE is not compulsory. If you don't think it's right for your students you don't have to do it - you can just concentrate on the really engaging stuff people like you and I are really concerned about.

Having said that, I still think the GCSE offers the opportunity for this - in fact that's why we successfully pushed for the coursework (controlled assessment) in the new GCSE to form a larger proportion of the final grade. This means the majority of the GCSE should be focused on a really active Citizenship campaign. The choice of this campaign is no longer entirely open - but that a decision by central government who wanted to exert some more control on coursework, which they felt was not rigorous enough. However, I don't think this will significantly limited students' choice of projects for the coursework.

That still leaves the question of the amount of content. There always was a lot of content to get through on the GCSE and I think the way to handle that is a) remember that it now only forms a small part of the final grade b) try to make the learning of content as fun as possible - we threw out the textbook and devised lots of learning games c) accept that there have to be some compromises in order to get a GCSE d) as I said before, if you think this is too much of a compromise, don't do the GCSE. When I lead training sessions, I always say to teachers, focus on quality before quantity. Ofsted can't complain is what you're teaching is inspiring and engaging, even if it doesn't tick every box in the programme of study.

I hope this is of some help.

Best wishes, Pete

Pete Pattisson, National Subject Lead for Citizenship

I am looking to find citizenship teaching expertise to contribute to a website producing quizzes and questions about citizenship and other subject areas.

Well, besides joining ACT we would also suggest the website of CitizED at www.citized.info for contacts.

Chris Waller

Hello,

I just read that a Primary Citizenship Curriculum is to begin next year.

At present I work in EAL, and would like to diversify. I hold an M(Phil) in Political Science. Is there a PGCE that would suite me, or am I already qualified to teach Citizenship? Thank you in advance for your time:-)

Best Regards,

Andrew Morrissey

You need to be a qualified teacher - there are several routes to this but we would suggest the PGCE route. I think it best if you just apply for the PGCE and in the meantime become familiar with the secondary and primary curriculum. There are details about the PGCE courses on our web site in the section title How do I become a Citizenship education teacher?

Chris Waller

I am a qualified social worker with a social work degree, looking to move into teaching. I am wondering if my degree would be relevant for me to look at teaching Citizenship. Please can you advise?

I think its certianly relevant but its best if you just make contact with the universities that run the Citizenship PGCE courses and ask them. You can find them on our web site in the section on How do I become a Citizenship education teacher?

Chris Waller