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Active citizenship
Are you stuck for ideas for citizenship classes? Find out how you can motivate students to become active citizens, and how democratic learning can be applied across the curriculum.
What is it that makes someone a good citizen? Voting regularly? Saving the environment? Helping the elderly across busy roads?
It's pretty much all of the above, and more — it's about setting a foundation for life skills and moral duties that start off in the classroom.
Citizenship was first included as part of the schools curriculum in September 2002. The aim was for citizenship studies to encourage pupils to develop sound principles of freedom, equality, justice and peace. In essence it's the means by which young people can engage with each other, with adults and within their neighbourhood and community. As a school subject, citizenship is a form of knowledge relating to an individual's rights, responsibilities and position within society.
Trying to work this philosophy into a practical lesson plan might sound a bit ambitious to say the least, but in the UK the DCSF and the Qualifications and Curriculum Authority (QCA) have collaborated to produce a list of topics that schools should cover to develop a sound basis for students' overall participation in local, national or global communities.
Identity, rights and responsibilities, crime, voluntary action, government and politics are some of the themes that come under the citizenship umbrella. These can be applied to a range of issues from crime, diversity and human rights to asylum seekers and senior citizens. It's this social learning approach that forms the basis for a wide range of creative and laterally thought out activities that can be adapted for all those within a school environment. Citizenship can be taken as a stand-alone subject or, ideally, be incorporated into traditional subjects like history, geography, art and science as well as design, media and ICT to bring the National Curriculum to life.
Schools can define how they initiate active citizenship. A statutory subject at Key Stages 3 and 4, the subject isn't obligatory at primary level, and no doubt the notion of trying to impart the inner workings of parliament or the pros and cons of a global economy to a room full of disgruntled six-year-olds is over-earnest at best. But in terms of themes like leadership, authority or personal identity, primary age children can engage in activities through talking one-on-one with adults to boost their confidence, in pairs, in groups or by using resources like pictures and stories that touch on life issues that can spark individual or group discussion.
Apparently, by the age of three we've already developed the social skills that we apply as adults. Active citizenship at primary level can involve debate on issues such as friendship, loyalty, culture or stereotyping in specific frameworks. A session in storytelling can form a useful foundation for learning about particular social issues. Most stories involve some form of conflict or problem solving, so even classics like Oliver Twist or Cinderella can be set to questions that need moral reasoning when considering character motives or themes of loyalty, crime, danger, isolation or kindness. The idea is to know why certain issues are being explored, how they relate to the world at large and how they might feature in an individual's perception of themselves or others.
As a two-way learning process, school councils can be set up for primary and secondary groups. These can take place in class and can involve class-elected members of a council who can then be responsible for leading debates on students' learning needs, and general concerns relating to their school life and experiences. This is a good way to keep teachers informed of what pupils can best relate to, and it keeps students up to speed with many of the workings of the school system. This practical approach to democratic learning can be shown in a number of ways, from drafting up and designing a students' charter based on the learning aims and needs of pupils to putting together a list of house rules for students' behaviour inside the classroom. Even school dinners can come under school council scrutiny by pupils looking at their own eating needs and habits within their school and linking their thoughts and findings with Personal and Social Health Education (PSHE), which fits hand in glove with citizenship studies.
None of these ideas should be stagnant, however. Charters or rules should be monitored and adhered to, and class councillors can be re-elected every term to keep the voting system alive, fair and also relevant to the way in which the electoral system works in the mainstream political world.
With the community spirit being such an integral part of active citizenship, charities and the work that they do can form the bedrock of citizenship studies. There are plenty of mainstream UK charity organisations. Most offer websites with lots of ideas for schools whose pupils can engage in voluntary projects that can further develop both the learning process and the community as a whole. An excellent way to extend active citizenship beyond the classroom is for pupils to develop a knowledge of the ethos behind charity organisations like Amnesty International, the World Wildlife Fund (WWF), Save the Children, unicef or Oxfam, to name a familiar few. Engaging with charity organisations can lead to unlimited projects that highlight the skills of primary and secondary students and tie in with the national curriculum.
Community Service Volunteers (CSV), which channels £1 million a year into secondary schools for community projects, is the UK's largest volunteering and training organisation, and the driving force behind the annual Make a Difference Day, which in 2003 saw 90 000 people aged from three years upwards donate one day of the weekend to voluntary work that ranged from turning wasteland into playgrounds or organising tea parties for the elderly to making toys for hospitals.
The bottom line with active citizenship is for schools to provide a way to encourage democratic thinking in young people, so even delving into issues like violence, drugs, bullying, racism or sexism can be tackled by different age groups. Newsletters, school magazines, workshops, poster campaigns and even school notice boards can serve as effective media for promoting awareness of how these negative issues affect society. Students can also work towards increasing their knowledge of the dangers of drugs or the impact of racism and sexism within society by working towards and providing statistics or visual images through art, design or mathematics; or writing poems, stories and scripts in English classes. They could also use drama work to perform plays for parents and teachers, to build their skills and further develop their understanding of the world around them through holistic and democratic learning.
Useful websites
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Barclays New Futures — Barclays works with the DCSF to support citizenship in the national curriculum through cash awards, educational resources, training materials and support.
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BBC — The BBC website has links to citizenship activities for primary and secondary schools.
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Charity Commission — A good starting point for links to the main UK registered charities.
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Changemakers — A charity that engages in community work with pupils and teachers.
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Channel 4 Learning — This site has links to interactive citizenship and PSHE activities.
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Citizenship Foundation — An independent charity that encourages young people to engage in the wider community.
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Community Service Volunteers — CSV is the UK's largest volunteering and training organisation.
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CSV Community Partners — This site helps teachers, pupils and their community partners to develop citizenship studies through community involvement.
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DCSF citizenship — Contains plenty of advice about citizenship for teachers and pupils.
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Giving Nation — An interactive site with free materials for secondary teachers and pupils wishing to run active citizen events.
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Institute for Citizenship — This site features resources, information and case studies for teachers and students.
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Kids' Clubs Network — An organisation for out-of-school child care.
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Make Space — Make space has a network of out-of-school clubs for 11 to 16-year-olds.
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National Youth Agency — A site promoting young people's involvement in the community.
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OneLondon — An organisation that engages in active links with schools and businesses to promote and develop citizenship in education.
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Prince's Trust — This site has details of the Prince's Trust independent xl after-school clubs for young people.
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Qualifications and Curriculum Authority — The QCA provides schemes of work for citizenship.
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School Councils UK — School Councils UK is supported by the DCSF. The site offers training and resources for students and teachers to set up school councils.
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Time for Citizenship — A site developed by teachers and police liaison officers to support citizenship education in primary schools.
This article was commissioned by TeacherNet's editorial team, independently of DCSF policy teams.
Last updated: 15 July 2007
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