Examination of Witnesses (Questions 40-41)
PROFESSOR SIR
BERNARD CRICK,
MS MIRIAM
ROSEN AND
MR SCOTT
HARRISON
24 OCTOBER 2005
Q40 Dr Blackman-Woods: I am very
interested in what you have to say about CPD because the Ofsted
Report shows that citizenship works best where it is a whole school
policy. That means that a large number of teachers in the school
at least need to have a basic understanding of what is underpinning
the curriculum. How do you get CPD in citizenship up the agenda
for teachers when they have got so many other competing demands?
Mr Harrison: I think it takes
us back to the management of the school. In terms of how a school
allocates its money for CPD, senior teachers who have signed up
to citizenship development will allocate the funding necessary
to release teachers to do these courses. If they do not do that
they will not get out. This is tied to the whole business of whether
senior managers in schools have recognised the opportunities of
citizenship, planned for it and put the resources and staffing
and curriculum time in place. I see it as part of a whole spiral,
and the fact is that the schools which have done best have been
operating on all those fronts, whereas those who are still not
off the starting block have not begun to see the senior management
decisions which are needed in order to move forward.
Ms Rosen: Schools have had citizenship
inspections, so they have information from Ofsted about whether
the citizenship in their school is good, bad or mediocre. We expect
them to act on that and if the citizenship in their school is
not good enough it should be high up their development agenda
and the senior management team should be doing something about
it. There is information out there to help them.
Professor Sir Bernard Crick: There
was a recommendation from the QCA in their first advice on the
Citizenship Order that because it was a new subject the head teacher
should gather together all teachers who might be involved, even
if it meant a day towards the end of the vacation to discuss how
it should be done. I have no figures on this, but the grapevine
tells one that very rarely was this done, and I think this is
a terrible disappointment. Of course, not to be too pretentious,
it should have been a time to discuss what this Order was really
trying to do, to make a cultural change towards a more participative
society. This is our England, we are citizens in it. As teachers,
we often feel things are being done to us that we cannot control
and now we have got a chance to discuss what we are going to do.
This has not happened very much. Admittedly there are the good
schools where the kids can see that the teacher discusses things
with the staff. There are other schools in which the pupils observe
that orders are handed down to the staff with very little discussion.
Kids are very perceptive of that. If we are talking about whole
school policy, so much depends on a kind of democratic leadership
by head teachers, some of whom are pretty capable of that because,
after all, think of the age group, the older heads were there
before the National Curriculum when liberal studies, general studies
and discussion were much more common in nearly all schools than
it became under the almost intolerable pressures of bringing in
the original National Curriculum. The younger teachers unless
they have some training, whether in college or whether in-service
training, as Scott said very eloquently a moment ago—they
have no experience in handling discussions on difficult issues
unless they happened to have been doing the sex teaching in primary
school or unless they are doing sex and drugs, but somehow the
skills which are used in teaching sex and drugs do not often get
transferred to politics. I see very close analogies in the methodologies
which are needed in handling these topics.
Q41 Chairman: Sir Bernard, Scott
and Miriam, can I thank you all for appearing. This was a short
bite. Sir Bernard, I hope that you and your colleagues will remain
in contact with us because we want to develop this, and we would
be very grateful if we can continue further communication with
you at some stage.
Professor Sir Bernard Crick: Can
I say how glad we all are that the Committee is taking up this
topic. Whatever you decide, it needs to be more public, more central
and remembered.
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