David's account of a ground breaking Three Day event on Citizenship, held for Stafford School children at Staffordshire University.

For three days this summer, Stafford’s Year 7 pupils (ages 11 & 12) took over the campus of Staffordshire University. The University and I were hosts for over 600 students from Stafford’s secondary schools. Our aim was to provide a focused, yet fun, learning experience about different aspects of citizenship for young people.

My ambition was for every pupil at the end of their first year of secondary school to reflect on the citizenship curriculum they had been studying for a year and to look forward to years more of this compulsory subject with a greater appreciation of its significance.

The result was a massive logistical operation as hundreds of pupils arrived each day by school transport from their home schools to share this learning experience with pupils from other schools, teachers and assistants and the workshop presenters who contributed so much to the success of the event.

Citizenship education has been compulsory in all secondary schools for six years now. A review after 5 years identified variable quality of delivery and suggested improvements, most of which the Department for Children, Schools & Families has put in place. Studies can lead to a recognised qualification in citizenship – a short GCSE currently, but a full one in future. The main argument for making the subject compulsory is that we need to do more to instil positive values in all our citizens from an early (school) age.

The teaching of citizenship aims to equip all students with:

• Appreciation of the moral and ethical codes that guide civilisations;
• Understanding of their communities and their place in them, including their ability to contribute through volunteering;
• Political literacy, with a knowledge of how institutions in our democracy work and the ways we can all contribute to their working;
• Respect for the diversity of beliefs and customs in our communities and in the world.

The teachers I worked with planning this event described the learning going on in local schools: building up self-confidence, confronting bullying, exploring socially and morally responsible behaviour, participating in schools councils and mock elections. At planning meetings, the teachers and I learned about what work goes on already and where the gaps in curriculum delivery may be.

Three days of learning at University offered broader benefits to the pupils themselves. As well as finding out more about citizenship learning, they saw the facilities available to Undergraduates and perhaps picked up some sense of the future educational opportunities open to them.

Three days of learning at University was also costly! At an early stage I recruited BT as a sponsor, helping to meet the costs of school transport and the hundreds of lunches served. BT participated in the event enthusiastically, providing workshop presenters and even goodie bags for all the pupils! Without BT’s funding we may never have been able to kick-start this first ever citizenship learning event over three days. Naturally, we will look at ways of mainstreaming this activity, but Staffordshire’s schools would have found it difficult to fund this start – up.  Staffordshire receives low national funding and is a firm supporter of the campaigning group, F40, seeking a fairer distribution of central funds.

If BT were generous, Staffordshire University were positively philanthropic. A full partner in all the planning for the event, meeting all the accommodation costs and providing staff and Student “Ambassadors” to supervise on the three days, the University deserves full credit for making the event possible.

The subject of citizenship is very important. But please do not think that this means that learning about it is worthy but dull! We had three great days of fun while learning serious lessons. Pupils arrived by school bus, they were welcomed formally and then they took part in three workshops during the day, broken up by lunch (provided by the University) and a play break. At the end of each day, the pupils came back together to describe their experiences and explain what they had learned.

During these daily feedback sessions, pupils spoke of having had fun, learned to be more positive about themselves, found out about good qualities like perseverance and consideration of other people’s views and heard a little about the worlds of politics, community and business. The many workshop leaders, who all gave their time for free, were brilliant, as were the University Ambassadors, who took responsibility for the schoolchildren all day.

The workshops covered a broad range of subjects. The Parliamentary Education Unit’s outreach service taught about how Parliament works and why voting matters. The Citizenship Foundation about young people’s rights and responsibilities and about international co-operation. Connexions presented a class on careers choices and BT provided presenters who gave the children experience of job interviewing as well as a workshop on a Youth Question Time. RSPCA presented a thought-proving session on human responsibility for animal welfare. We had a juggler who taught juggling skills. (I asked one pupil what she learned from this experience and she said it taught her persistence and not giving up easily).

A lot of the work to bring these ingredients together fell on me and Debbie Wakefield, my constituency office manager. The pressure at times was immense. Was it worth it? You bet!

DNK/Citizenship article/13.08.2008