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Carnegie Young People Initiative
Citizenship Education: Written Evidence to the Education and Skills Committee 24th March 2006.
Introduction The Carnegie Young People (CYPI) is a programme funded by the Carnegie UK Trust. Its sole focus is children and young people's participation in decision making across the UK and Ireland. The Initiative is now in its final phase of its work programme, and is focussing on three themes - organisation change, promoting the benefits of participation, and sharing good practice.
We have taken a special interest in Citizenship Education across the UK and Ireland, particularly in relation to whole school approaches and pupil participation. Our most recent set of three publications under the banner heading - Inspiring Schools: taking up the challenge of pupil participation** - focus on evidence of good practice and measuring the impact of pupil voice.
Evidence
The Carnegie Young People Initiative, in its experience of working with practitioners, is broadly in favour of the Citizenship Education and its statutory status in secondary education. However, as noted by Ofsted in its annual report, the quality of delivery of Citizenship Education varies across schools in England.
At Carnegie we believe that to improve the quality of Citizenship Education in all schools, we need to:
· Build in time and capacity · Ensure real opportunities for children and young people to experience democracy · Increase the support from MPs, MEPs and Local Councillors
Time and Capacity Evidence from Ofsted and from the NFER's longitudinal study on Citizenship Education suggests that those schools who have appointed a specialist co-ordinator and have built lesson space into the timetable have been more successful in delivering the Citizenship Education curriculum.
We therefore argue that more PGCE Citizenship courses should be available for student teachers as well as improved CPD for practicing teachers.
Each LEA should have a clear role in supporting schools, for example co-ordinating activity across all schools in the authority, leading on sharing best practice and signposting schools to existing resources and external agencies. LEA support should also integrate Citizenship into other policy initiatives - such as Extended Schools, National Healthy Schools, and Specialist Schools.
There needs to be a protected budget line for all this activity.
We have also gathered case study evidence on pupil voice and have found that where there is clear senior management support, alongside a dedicated co-ordinator, and commitment from other teachers, Citizenship and pupil participation has been successfully embedded into the whole school culture and curriculum. For example the City Academy in Bristol has a dedicated co-ordinator, but has also built in space on the timetable for other teachers to managed Citizenship and pupil participation work.
Participation and Pupil Voice Our research in this area suggests that the benefits to schools when engaging pupils in decision making are compelling. From our own critical analysis of existing data we found a clear link with academic achievement, including skills development; greater self-esteem and confidence; improved behaviour in the school; better decisions are made in the school.
From gathering case study evidence, we found that children and young people who are involved in school decision making have a real sense of achievement and commitment to the school's ethos and policies. For example in St Joseph's Comprehensive School in South Tyneside, the school council was instrumental in changing the homework policy. They conducted a survey of all mmendations about the standard and amount of homework set. The new homewostudents, ensuring that all voices were heard, from which they were able to make recork policy has support from all students and teachers, and the standard of homework from students has improved as a result.
We urge policymakers to consider an entitlement framework for all children and young people, building on the DfES' document, Working Together: Giving Children and Young People a Say. Student involvement should not be limited to those who are members of a school council or a working group.
We also argue that there should be a strategy for measuring schools' success in embedding pupil voice. Many of the Headteachers we are in contact with argue that whilst schools are judged by the narrow criteria of league tables, pupil voice will not be considered a priority in schools. Bearing in mind the benefits of pupil voice to academic achievement, this seems to be a lost opportunity.
Support from Elected Representatives In our work with the Puttnam Commission on Parliament**, we have already recommended that the capacity of the Parliamentary Education Unit should be scaled up to provide more young people with a real and informative experience of Parliament. We welcome the recent appointment of two Outreach Workers to work more closely with schools in their own geographical locations.
We are also aware of the valuable support many MPs have offered their local schools and recognise the number of school visits that are already taking place. However, we would recommend that more MPs encourage young people to engage with them on real issues and for the views of young people to be fed into decision making processes - through select committees and parliamentary debates.
Finally, we would remind members of the Education and Skills Committee that it is imperative that the voices of children and young people themselves are heard when gathering evidence on Citizenship Education. If invited, and literature made accessible, many school students would be keen to feed into your work.
* Our three publications on Pupil Voice will be available from April 2006.
These are:
1. Inspiring Schools: Impact and Outcomes 2. Inspiring Schools: A Literature Review 3. Inspiring Schools: Case Studies for Change
** Raji Hunjan, Director of Education and Schools at the Carnegie Young People Initiative was also a member of the Puttnam Commission on Parliament and the Public Eye.
Raji Hunjan Carnegie Young People Initiative Downstream Building One London Bridge London SE1 9BG
020 7785 6575 raji@carnegie-youth.org.uk |