Why Citizenship?

The above comment about history was made to me today when I visited a school which used to teach Citizenship discretely but took the subject off the curriculum when the specialist teacher left. Several teachers spoke unprompted about how it had affected the school. One talked about a discussion in a Senior Management Team meeting where teachers from different subjects explained the negative impact it had had on the quality of pupil learning. It's interesting to note that whilst removing discrete Citizenship from the timetable frees time for other subjects, the effects described to me were negative. One form tutor also noted a change in the quality of informal pupil discussions. Another who had previously taught Citizenship, Geography, History, Maths and PE described “a different kind of interaction and discussion” that they had been able to encourage in Citizenship lessons and how valuable he had found that.

 

After gathering ideas from Twitter and at the launch of Democratic Life - the campaign for Citizenship education, I thought I’d start off by presenting points in this spider diagram. I'm hoping to add in ideas and respond to any comments you make. So tell me:

1. What have I missed?

2. Which of these points would you like developed or explained?

3. Which do you think are most/least important?

 

I'll update and expand this blog on the basis of your comments. Please leave your comments here or tweet to @LKMco using the hashtag #CitEd.

Finally, if you agree with me that Citizenship Education should be saved, vote in my current poll and check out Democratic Life who are campaigning against the scrapping of Citizenship (see their website or follow them on Twitter) to find out how you can be an active citizen and get involved in the campaign.