ACT Teaching Conference 7 July 2018 Democracy and Young People
2018 ACT Teaching Conference: Youthquake
Designed by ACT teachers on the theme of ‘Youthquake: young people and the future of democracy’, this year’s conference is shaping up to be one of our best!
The event is suited to all those involved in teaching democracy whether through Citizenship, the fundamental Britsh Values or SMSC in primary and secondary education. The timing of the conference has been planned to take place in the first ever ‘National Democracy Week’.
The conference, being hosted by the Mayor of London’s team at City Hall will open with students from Hamilton Academy and the Deputy Mayor for Education and Childcare, Joanne McCartney. Guest speaker James Sloam from the Univeristy of Holloway is a youth citizenship expert and will share his work on ‘Youthquake: Young People and the 2017 General Election’. Alongside the students and James, Nicky Cox MBE Founder and Editor-in-Chief of First News, UK’s only children’s newspaper, will add to the opening discussions with her thoughts on the need to develop critical media literacy through Citizenship and the power of young people as global, active citizens.
During the day participants can join in a range of conference workshops:
Creating a deliberative classroom
English-Speaking Union and Middlesex University is a practical session using talk and deliberative debate pedagogy to explore controversial issues and fundamental British Values including the knowledge needed for example when teaching about fake news.
Tokenism and toilets: What does your school council teach your pupils?
Smart School Councils are a teacher-led charity that helps young people to become active, democratic citizens. The session will introduce a practical and easy to achieve whole-school model to involve every pupil in democracy that is used in 360 schools across the world.
Engaging Students in Democracy
Kingston University School of Education and trainee teachers share creative ideas/resources on innovative and engaging ways in which to spark interest in democracy and political debate. You will have the opportunity of hearing how a range of teachers are developing political debate and the chance to share your own experiences as well as try out some new ideas. The ideas and strategies developed will be collated and shared as a Political Literacy toolkit after the conference.
Education for democracy: critical engagement with your local context to promote active Citizenship
London Curriculum In this session two teachers will share ideas and resources developed by ACT for the new London Curriculum for Citizenship uses the London context to supporting youth democracy and active Citizenship.
Parliament, Politics and Active Citizenship in your classroom
Parliament Education Service workshop, for both Primary and Secondary teachers, giving practical activities to bring the UK Parliament, elections and active citizenship to life in your classroom.
The Conference will be closed by Baroness Garden of Frognal who is a Deputy Speaker in the House of Lords. A former teacher herself, Lady Garden will share her thoughts on women in parliament, equalities and citizenship education as we mark 100 years since the extension of the vote and 20 years of Citizenship in England.
Places at the conference are limited and can be booked online via the ACT conference booking page. This event is closed.
We are very grateful to all conference speakers, contributers and sponsors for their support this year.