Citizenship education

[ukyp]

Campaign proposal

To improve citizenship education

Purpose of campaign

We believe that there needs to be a radical review and overhaul through a youth lead UK wide review on the subject of citizenship education. In the readdressing of Citizenship we believe that it should readdress citizenship particularly in the following area:

- Having trained teachers teaching the subject and ensuring that it is given a valued part in the timetable

- The subject should include (along with the original educational curriculum) political education (enabling people to understand and become more involved in the political process etc) cultural awareness (of all groups allowing schools to promote not only ethnic minorities but all minorities, promoting not only awareness but understanding) community cohesion (citizenship education should encourage people to participate in helping their community through ideas such as volunteering etc), environment (our commitment responsibility to the environment)

- The way that the subject ties in with Personal, Social and Health Education (PSHE) and to forge a stronger and more beneficial link enabling students to leave school fully informed about politics, society and life skills

Read more about this campaign

Discuss

· What do you think of this campaign idea?
· Is this issue important to you?
· Is the campaign realistic and achievable?
· What challenges would this campaign face?
· How could we make this campaign successful?

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[kat]

Hi everyone!

Just a note to bare in mind with this campaign suggestion, there is already a PHCSE reveiw currently taking part for implementation in 2011. UKYP involvement in this has been mainly focused around Sex and relationships education and drug and alcohol education, however we have been involved in minor stages. Consider whether we should start a campaign essentially 'jumping on the band wagon' of a major peice of work that is already being done.

Kat Mather
SE

[Nick Pringle]

I'm onne of the two MYPs on the Drugs education review board and I can also say that the govt. has started it's review of PSHE education (which is to include aspects of citizenship).

However, citizenship its self is different to PSHE as it is more about living in the UK and teaching you practical skills regarding to the legal, political and monetary system.

For example they should be teaching about political parties and voting as well as things like buying a house and getting a mortgage. A lot of students are missing out on this education so in that sense I think the campaign is a very good suggestion!

However, I think that the government review of PSHE may lead to it including some of these aspects of citizenship so the campaign isnt as straightforward as just making it statutory. I think we've got a great opportunity to latch onto the review that's happening and hopefully get PSHE improved to incorperate citizenship.

The North East region worked with the BBC to create a short film about standards of citizenship education in schools for hte politics show. You can watch it here:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/programme...ow/7820685.stm
That's the whole programme but the clip is just a few minutes starting aroung 23minutes into it.

Overall I think the campaign is extremely important and we definately need to imrpove standards of citizenship education in schools! But how we do it and what's already happening will take quite a bit more thinking...

Nick Pringle MYP
South Tyneside

[MYP for Maidstone]

I do not like the idea of this, and anyway, as Kat has said, the government are already working on it, so it would be a waste of a campaign slot for UKYP.

If it did happen, I do not feel it would be beneficial for all of the young people in the country, because not all of them go to school to recieve these citizenship lessons.

[Alex Mitchell]

In my local school we have just had ofsted to visit to review our Citizenship teachers and the general teaching within the school. The inspector was very impressed and we got a good overall, seeing as this is a recently new course we did very well.

I dont know about other schools and education but from where im standing in my local constituency and local area Citizenship education seems fine ...

Alex Mitchell
MYP for South Somerset

[Gotlieb Alexander]

How about abolishing it?

[NatashaaBabeesx]

In some of my local senior schools we have very scarce Citezenship lessons. Many young people in my are do enjoy these lessons as we do learn in an enjoyable was but unfortunately we do not learn as much as we should do.

Natasha Hook
DMYP
Fareham and Gosport.

[funkynewagedude]

I think citizenship is an important topic that schools should cover and do properly, but, the big thing they need to do first is get people interested first. We did general studies for a-level and not a single person has ever paid any attention to it - most won't even turn up to the lessons, and I heard citizenship has similar problems. Many people just focus on grades and further education such as uni, and these lessons won't count.

[Bookworm56]

All we did was drugs, alcohol and prejudice. It was really boring.

[M-lo]

Originally Posted by funkynewagedude

We did general studies for a-level and not a single person has ever paid any attention to it - most won't even turn up to the lessons

To be fair, General Studies is different to citizenship. At least in citizenship there's a point to the lessons- it's meant to be the place where schools teach knowledge useful for general life. For GS though, lessons are entirely pointless- I can think of better things to do every monday afternoon than endless practice papers in GCSE standard maths, english and science. It is useful for some people to get an extra grade to get into university, but a local school to me scrapped lessons and just did a day of preparation before the exam- and their results improved.