making good citizens

By Diana Hinds

How does a primary school go about turning its pupils into good and active citizens, when many of them have probably never even heard the word before? If the question leaves you feeling bemused, then rest assured: citizenship is simply another term for much of the work that good primary schools have always done, in terms of developing a moral sense in their pupils, encouraging them to take responsibility for their actions and to behave towards others with consideration and respect.

Curriculum Vitals
The chief difference now is that, for the first time, Curriculum 2000 lays down exactly what is expected of schools in this area, and calls the subject - giving it a good millennium ring - Citizenship. While the subject requirements are statutory from 2002 for secondary schools, for primary schools they take the form of non-statutory guidelines for Key Stages One and Two, which are combined with personal, social and health education into a framework occupying a mere half dozen pages in the National Curriculum handbook.

”Most of our schools have been doing this sort of work anyway,” says Anne Lloyd, primary adviser for Luton education authority. “But the guidelines give schools a framework for continuity and progression, so that they can identify what they are already doing and see how they can build on it.”

Pupil Power
Good practice in citizenship education might include: opportunities for children to help define rules in their own classroom or to represent each other in the context of a school council; developing a school environmental policy with children and allowing them to help take care of the school buildings and grounds; inviting parents in to talk about their roles in the wider community, as well as visits from members of the local council, or local and national voluntary bodies, to give children an understanding of their work.

Professor Bernard Crick, who reported to the Government in 1998 on education for citizenship and the teaching of democracy in schools and is currently a DfEE adviser on citizenship, defines citizenship education as having three main strands: social and moral responsibility, political literacy and community involvement.

Primary teachers will probably feel comfortable with the first of these. The third, community involvement, seems potentially taxing until you realise that, for primary children, much important work can be done in the context of their own school community rather than outside it. Only the second, political literacy, seems vaguely daunting - and may involve teachers in boning up a little on, for instance, the procedures and systems of their local council.

Free Role
For once, however, there is to be little centralised direction from government in exactly how schools go about incorporating citizenship into their timetables. Some may choose to give the subject its own weekly slot, but many aspects of the work will overlap with topics raised in the literacy hour, or in geography, history, religious education. Large areas of citizenship, too, naturally relate to the life and ethos of the whole school, taking shape, for instance, in assemblies or school council meetings.

”There is a danger that citizenship will be perceived as just another big load on schools,” says Anne Lloyd, from the Luton LEA, “but if they do the planning, and carry out an audit to see what they are doing already, that can be quite reassuring. Also, citizenship focuses on many of the issues that teachers have regretted were being squeezed out of the national curriculum: these guidelines give them permission to spend time on these things, and to be involved with their pupils’ personal development.”

New Resources
Independent citizenship bodies have been hard at work devising and testing out new materials to help primary teachers. The Institute for Citizenship, for instance, has published, with Stanley Thornes, a teacher’s resource book for Key Stage One, and a Key Stage Two equivalent is due out later this year. (More information from www.citizen.org.uk). The book usefully sets out key topics such as helping, including and excluding others, caring for the environment, explaining different cultures, debating and voting, with questions and suggested activities. Large photographs of children engaged in these types of activities are intended to initiate and stimulate class discussion - and teachers who have already made use of them say they are proving helpful.

Discussion is likely to form a major part of citizenship education, perhaps incorporated into the “circle time” sessions that are now such a feature of many primary schools. But Don Rowe, director of curriculum resources at the Citizenship Foundation, says that the quality of teacher questioning in these sessions is vitally important, so that questions are framed in such a way as to deepen children’s thinking.

He believes teachers could be more effective in their questioning if they had a better understanding of what he calls “moral stage theory”. This is a developmental model, in which young children’s typically egocentric and punishment-oriented phase of morality (for instance, if you ask a young child why it is wrong to steal, they will tend to say “because you¹ll get put in prison”), with guidance later matures into a more abstract and empathetic understanding, whereby moral rules are more fully internalised. Helping a child on towards this more mature understanding can do a great deal to alleviate self-centred or aggressive behaviour towards others.

”Once teachers have an understanding of this, it gives them a framework of questions to pose; for instance, empathy-related questions - like ‘how do you think that person would feel?’ - that help to move children on a bit,” says Don Rowe.

The Citizenship Foundation has produced a training pack, with A&C Black publishers, Introducing Citizenship, for key stages one and two, and to be used by citizenship coordinators together with colleagues. (More information from www.citfou.org.uk). It includes video clips of classroom discussions, annotated and analysed in the handbook, as well as footage of a school council in action and suggestions on how to set one up.

Council Planning
School councils are a relatively new concept for many primary schools. But schools that are developing them, in line with citizenship education or as part of the Government’s National Healthy Schools Standard (see www.wiredforhealth.gov.uk), are finding that primary pupils respond well to the challenge.

At St Matthew’s Junior School in Luton, for instance, the school council has developed from being teacher-led to being child-led (with the assistance of a ‘link’ teacher), and is now going from strength to strength. The council has initiated school discos where pupils are responsible for the music and for the clearing up; a raffle to purchase soap dispensers, in place of bars of soap; and a sleepover to raise money for a hospice. The school governors also regularly pass issues to the school council for debate.

”The children now feel they are listened to,” says Sue Cox, the council ‘link’ teacher. “We are giving them the responsibility, and letting them have a say - as long as it is a need, and not just a want. As a school we needed to look at issues to do with behaviour and responsibility; we have a minority of pupils with very low self-esteem, who do not see how they fit into the world. Citizenship education has made them begin to address things they would not have done before, and it is building their self-esteem.”