Citizenship education - where next? A panel discussion led by Lord Blunkett

As Secretary of State, David Blunkett set up the Advisory Group for Citizenship and Teaching of Democracy in schools, chaired by ACT founder Professor, Sir Bernard Crick. This led to Citizenship Studies becoming a statutory National Curriculum subject in secondary schools from 2002.

Liz leads the Charity, working with our Board, Teacher Council and staff and overseeing key programmes including the Five Nations Network in the UK and Ireland. She has a MSc Politics and Public Policy from  Birkbeck London and a BA Hons Geography with Archaeology from Manchester University. Liz has worked in education for over twenty years and led the development of Citizenship as a new curriculum subject in previous roles for central government at the Qualifications and Curriculum Authority. Liz is a Director of the Council for Subject Associations. She is also the Department for Education’s UK representative to the Council of Europe Education Policy Network on Democratic Citizenship and Human Rights and a member of the Advisory Board on Democratic Resilience with the Wergeland Centre and the Council of Europe.

Dr Alison Body is a Senior Lecturer in the School of Social Policy, Sociology and Social Research, and a member of the Centre for Philanthropy. Dr Body started her career in 2001 working in children and youth charities, specialising in early intervention services and advocating for children’s participation rights. Her experience includes leading a large children’s charity, strategic development of the third sector, fundraising and volunteer management. In 2008, she joined Kent County Council as a senior Commissioner of early intervention services. Driven by these experiences, she completed her PhD at Kent in 2016, exploring the relationship between children’s charities and the State. After working at Canterbury Christ Church University between 2015-2017 as a Faculty Director in the School of Childhood and Education Sciences, Alison joined the University of Kent in January 2019.

Helen is the Bohunt Trust Subject Director of Personal Development Curriculum Leader PSCHE. In addition she has responsibility for Pupil Voice and Pupil Leadership. Helen initially trained as a secondary teacher in Business Education but has been involved in Citizenship education for over 20 years. She has been a committed member of ACT Council since 2012 and has helped to plan the ACT national conference, written articles for the journal and worked on curriculum briefings to support teachers and Citizenship professionals with the new National Curriculum.  Helen is also a member of the Expert Subject Group for Citizenship and has contributed to the Five Nations Network as a country expert for England. Helen became Chair of ACT Council in 2015.

Lee is Associate Professor in Education at Middlesex University. Lee trained as secondary teacher in Social Studies and taught History and Sociology for several years before moving to the HE sector, where he taught on PGCE programmes, as well as a variety of CPD & MA courses. Lee has been involved with ACT since it began in 2001 and served on the Board of Trustees and was Chair of Council until April 2013. Lee is co-editor of the ACT journal ‘Teaching Citizenship’.

Stewart is Headteacher at Priory School, Southsea Academy. Priory School is a mixed 11-16 school located in Portsmouth with 1,250 students on roll. They have a distinctive ethos that combines a prime focus on high achievement with a strong concern for the social development of each individual. Citizenship is delivered within PSCHE lessons at KS3 and as an option at GCSE level. 

Craig is currently a Vice Principal in an academy in Middlesbrough which is part of one of the highest-performing multi-academy trusts in England. He has whole school responsibility for SEND, Safeguarding, Behaviour and Attendance (Deep Support).

Craig passionately believes that all students can benefit and succeed when given the right opportunities.

During his career, he has engaged in a variety of cross-cultural projects to enable students to fully engage in active global citizenship. Acting as the subject leader for RE (maternity cover), he has been responsible for driving achievement, long term planning and financial management of a department budget.

Craig has extensive experience in examining having acted as an examiner for AQA and Edexcel, and was recently appointed as an Assessment Writer for AQA, part of the team responsible for writing and reviewing exam materials for GCSE.