Examination of Witnesses (Questions 82-99)
MR CHRIS
WALLER, MS
BERNADETTE JOSLIN,
MR MICK
WATERS AND
MR TONY
BRESLIN
26 APRIL 2006
Q82 Chairman: May I welcome Chris Waller,
Bernadette Joslin, Mick Waters and Tony Breslin to our session
today. We are very pleased that you could respond to our invitation.
This is an inquiry we take very seriously. We started it some
time ago, but certain issues, such as our special educational
needs inquiry and a look at the Education White Paper, made us
delay really getting on with the inquiry. We now have our programme
planned and this is really our new kick-start of the inquiry.
Welcome indeed to our proceedings. I will give each of you a chance
to say a quick word about who you are and what sort of organisation
you come from. Do you want to kick off, Tony?
Mr Breslin: Thank you for the
invitation today. I am Tony Breslin. I am Chief Executive of the
Citizenship Foundation. We are an independent educational charity.
We work to support teachers and youth workers and all the others
who work to promote good quality citizenship education in a range
of settings but especially with regard to schools and support
of the Curriculum Order and so forth.
Mr Waters: Good morning. I am
Mick Waters. I am Director of Curriculum at the Qualification
and Curriculum Authority. Our job is to develop a modern word-class
curriculum that will inspire and challenge all learners and prepare
them for the future.
Ms Joslin: Hello. I am Bernadette
Joslin. I am the Project Manager of the Post-16 Citizenship Development
Programme at the LSN, the Learning and Skills Network, which recently
came into existence on 1 April. You may have heard of the Learning
and Skills Development Agency. On 1 April that split into two,
the Quality Improvement Agency and the LSN. The Quality Improvement
Agency is responsible for strategy and policy and the LSN is responsible
for research, delivery and training.
Mr Waller: Good morning. I am
Chris Waller. I am the Professional Officer at the Association
for Citizenship Teaching, a post which I took up in 2004 after
30 years of teaching in secondary education. I guess my role is
really to promote citizenship in both a formal and an informal
educational setting primarily with schools. We are a membership
organisation and we work nationally with many different local
authorities and schools who are our members, but we also work
with those organisations and schools that are not and we encourage
them to be members and to have an understanding about the importance
of citizenship education.
Q83 Chairman: When we talked to Sir
Bernard Crick we got the impression that the enthusiasm for citizenship
education had waned a bit. When it all started, much inspired
by David Blunkett at that time, there was great enthusiasm and
a mission to roll out citizenship education across the piece.
I got the impression from Sir Bernard that he thought things had
stalled a bit. Is that your view? Would you agree with that?
Mr Waller: You imply disinterest
perhaps. I am not certain it is that. There was an initial impetus
and also an initial enthusiasm for something that was very new.
I think there has been a realisation that the goal of citizenship
is something that is different, as indeed Bernard set out in his
original intent about a massive change in the way in which society
functions and how young people particularly engage with society.
The realisation set within that is that this is not just another
subject that is to be taught, like a different version of maths
or science or English, but something that impinges upon the whole
way in which schools function and it is about a bridge between
young people, their schools, their families and their communities
and that means there needs to be a much more sophisticated response
to this. I am not so certain that it is about disinterest, but
it is about a realisation that this is an enormous task and therefore
requires much more thought in order to carry things forward.
Q84 Chairman: Is that the process
going on? Who is doing the thinking?
Mr Waller: I would say the evidence
that I have from working with schools and in schools is that that
process is happening and teachers are now recognising that this
is a very serious business. Some of the things that have happened
this year indicate that there is a much more positive understanding
about how to tackle those basic and, in some respects, very serious
issues in delivering quality in the classroom. I think it has
been a growing realisation that this is something that requires
a campaign rather than merely one battle that is simply won or
lost.
Mr Waters: I think the initial
enthusiasm is sustained, but the pace of development is very variable.
There are plenty of schools that are taking citizenship enormously
seriously and achieving incredibly well. Equally, there are many
that are still in the foothills waiting to go up the big slopes
and they are touching on citizenship without making enormous strides
forward. The number of youngsters taking GCSEs was 38,000 last
year and it is estimated to be 50,000 this year, which would indicate
a growth in interest in citizenship and a willingness on the part
of schools to drive their children to achieve in the subject.
Overall I think the pattern is variable, but the enthusiasm has
not waned, it is just that many schools are finding it difficult
to take the programmes forward successfully.
Q85 Chairman: Is that not a rather
distinct position compared to Chris Waller's? I think he was talking
about this being something that should suffuse the whole school
and it should not be measured just in terms of how many people
are taking GCSEs. Just by measuring how many people are taking
a particular exam might be isolating it as a subject.
Mr Waters: I absolutely agree
with that. The GCSE is an indicator of a growing involvement in
the subject by students at a particular level. I was trying to
answer your question about whether enthusiasm had dwindled. It
should pervade the school. It should be part of the way in which
students meet their growing aspirations, their growing outlooks
on life and it should be in the school's interest to encourage
young people to be learning about citizenship from a very early
age and developing the skills of citizenship so that they employ
them within the daily life of their school and they have an influence
on the way in which their school works, operates and runs within
their local community.
Q86 Chairman: Bernadette, in terms
of research that you are doing, do we have knowledge of how many
heads are seriously involved? Is there any measure of participation
at the top of the school?
Ms Joslin: My expertise is in
post-16 citizenship. I can talk in terms of what is happening
across post-16 education and training.
Q87 Chairman: What is happening?
Ms Joslin: I have been responsible
for a development programme which has been running for the last
five years. It is fairly small scale in terms of the number of
young people involved in post-16 education and training, but I
would say over the five years there has been a groundswell of
interest and enthusiasm. You might ask me what the indicators
are for that. Mick has just referred to the number of young people
moving forward for GCSE citizenship. The number of hits on our
website, for example, has gone up dramatically in recent months,
although it might not sound very much. For example, there are
3,000 requests for materials a month. We have distributed 70,000
copies of our newsletter. I think there is growing interest in
this area. Lots and lots of people are asking me what is happening
beyond the development phase of the process, but it is very difficult
to pin down. We certainly have had a lot of interest from senior
managers if attendance and events and enquiries to the programme
are anything to go by. I am not sure what is happening in schools.
Perhaps others can comment on that.
Q88 Chairman: We will come back to
post-16 citizenship.
Mr Breslin: I think all of us
would argue that citizenship is not just a new subject, it is
a new and different type of subject and it is about combining
the traditional work of the classroom with real opportunities
for young people to develop citizenship skills during participation
and involvement. What we are finding is, as Chris has said, that
the scale of that task is vast. Sir Bernard talked about a waning
of impetus or interest or whatever. In a sense one of the things
that he was alluding to and that we have suggested in our submission
is that in order to make a success of this new type of subject
we need the infrastructure in place to make sure that the local
authorities, Ofsted and indeed the Ofsted framework and the National
College of School Leadership, with their various levers and tools,
really give support to teachers on the ground who often, given
the pressures they are under, remain remarkably positive. More
infrastructural levers would help us and they would certainly
help us with some of those heads for whom citizenship perhaps
is not seen as quite so important.
Q89 Chairman: What is an infrastructural
lever?
Mr Breslin: For instance, building
much stronger citizenship components into the school self-evaluation
form when schools prepare for inspection, looking at things like
the national qualification for headship and saying what is the
place of developing citizenship as a part of the development of
school leadership, and ensuring that there is far wider training
of Ofsted inspectors, of their lay advisers and so forth. There
is sometimes a sense that the individual teacher or the individual
head or department does not always have perhaps those structures
kicking in the same direction. I think what is interesting is
that where you put one of those levers in, like GCSE, schools
move towards it because it provides currency, it provides an accreditation
track and so on. We would not say by any means it should be the
only measure or whatever. I do not think we have done enough over
recent years to put those kinds of levers in place to support
the needs of what is still a very new area.
Q90 Chairman: Is there any evidence
of consumer satisfaction? Are we finding that parents and students
actually want citizenship classes and citizenship as part of the
curriculum, or is this something a former education secretary
thought was a good idea? Is it being tested in terms of consumer
demand?
Mr Waller: I am not sure whether
it is politic to mention schools by name. Certainly I know that
you met with John Clark, the Deputy Director of Children's Services
from Hampshire last time and it is probable that he talked about
the rights, respect and responsibilities project within Hampshire,
something that has enthused those in Key Stage 1 and 2 schools.
I am wary about linking that too strongly to an improvement in
student behaviour which was certainly evident from those schools
who took part in that project, but there was great enthusiasm
in the communities where those schools sat and worked with parents
and their head teachers about the importance that citizenship-based
activity and projects could bring to the school and the whole
community in terms of student attitude, behaviour and performance.
So I think in that respect there is customer satisfaction from
all involved. In a secondary school that I worked with in north
Cornwall earlier this year a head teacher has provided for up
to five hours for some students in the school to be involved in
citizenship activities in timetabled time. Five hours is almost
a day a week. That is a huge amount of time. That is customer
satisfaction from not only the students who want to be involved
in that, because that five hours not only consists of the entitlement
that all young people have in Key Stage 3 to citizenship but also
additional activities that the school, staff and the students
think are valuable and have created as options that they can do
in years 10, 11, 12 and 13, but also the head teacher seeing that
there might be a risk here. Five hours is a lot to sell to parents
as well as students and teachers, but there is great satisfaction
in terms of the way in which the school benefits from students
being involved to such a degree in citizenship. I think that customer
satisfaction is there but it is not in every school and not with
every single student. It depends upon the quality of the experience
and that quality, as I am sure we will talk about later, is down
to many different factors. Where things work well, there is enormous
customer satisfaction from all those involved in that.
Q91 Chairman: There is a little bit
of the cynic in me which is thinking that if some of my own children
were offered five hours of maths or five hours of citizenship
they might opt for citizenship.
Mr Waller: I do not think it is
about being offered, I think it is about something that they opt
for. This is something that students see as being beneficial to
them and they also understand what citizenship is about, that
it is not just about a taught subject, it is an aspect of life.
Q92 Chairman: You are not answering
me on the principle. What would you say to people who said to
you why should a school be involved in citizenship? Why should
parents not be the people that impart citizenship? Why is it not
the faith group in the community and all those social institutions
that historically have delivered on citizenship? Why should the
state be interested in doing this?
Mr Waller: I am not necessarily
convinced that those partners have delivered citizenship. I think
it depends on how you define what citizenship is. Certainly one
might construe that church groups have been involved in citizenship-type
activities, but citizenship is not their business either in a
political, legal or social sense, so I am not certain that that
is true. I think it would be true to say that schools are well
placed to encompass all sorts of different aspects of what citizenship
is and what citizenship might be described as without some of
the baggage that some of those other groups might have, but I
think it might be fair to say that if we see schools as being
at the heart of communities then it is surely incumbent upon us
to recognise what citizenship should be, not in terms of a pass
or failure at GCSE, but in terms of the way in which we deport
ourselves in relation to our fellow human beings.
Mr Waters: I want to go back to
the question of customer satisfaction. We have got anecdotal evidence
through our monitoring that young people, parents and schools
themselves see benefits and real values through the outcomes of
citizenship. We are doing some formal monitoring now through young
people and through parent groups to get the detail behind that
and that will be ready at the end of this year. Where citizenship
is well taught and where it is a fundamental part of the school's
business there is plenty of evidence that the people engaged within
it do see the benefits and are satisfied with what it produces.
Let me move on to the bit about why is it the role of schools.
If part of the role of schools is to achieve aims for young people,
which includes being confident learners and being active participants
within their society and the world they live, then there is an
element of learning which is bound to be wrapped up with the agenda
which takes them forward as useful contributing adults to society
as well as personally satisfied people. Agendas such as the Every
Child Matters agenda and the need to encourage respect and
the need to understand global issues need to be brought together
under some sort of organisational construct and citizenship gives
you the opportunity to do that within the context of schooling.
Ms Joslin: Let me go back to the
original question about whether there is customer satisfaction
and if young people want this. Obviously I can only speak from
my direct experience with the programme. NFER did an external
evaluation and interviewed over 200 young people as part of that.
We have about 17,500 in any one year working within the programme
at all levels. I think the response echoes what Chris and Mick
have said, which is that if citizenship activity is well done
and is relevant and focussed on the interests of young people
there is great enthusiasm from it. We have lots and lots of positive
anecdotes where young people say how much they have got out of
it. I would urge the Committee to take the opportunity to invite
some young people themselves to come and talk to you because in
many ways they are the best ambassadors for this and they will
tell you it like it is and they are very well able to speak for
themselves. I think in post-16 there are lots of different ways
of delivering citizenship, but one of the ways is in young people's
free time. Young people are very, very busy and yet we have evidence
from across the programme of young people taking up considerable
amounts of their free time, even those that are involved in very,
very heavy workloads, A levels, ASs, with this type of activity.
Schools within the programme see it as an important thing to support
their young people getting into highflying universities, Oxford,
Cambridge, et cetera. I am not saying that everything is rosy
and there are not areas where young people are not enthusiastic,
but I think post-16, with the accent on activity and experiential
learning, really gave them opportunities to develop their citizenship
learning. The enthusiasm is from the young people. I would say
some of the problems are with the staff and some of the senior
managers where I agree that there needs to be a case built for
this with parents or perhaps with some staff who might be involved
in delivery as well as senior managers and I would like to see
that done.
Mr Breslin: What we do see, if
we look at the NFER study and the four categories of school that
they identify, is a reluctance between those minimalist schools
to take on citizenship, but where schools do take it on and embrace
it they realise the value of it, parents do and young people do.
Something that has been very useful in that has been some parent
and governor information that the Department commissioned the
Foundation to produce 18 months or so ago now that went out to
all schools. You will know that recently two copies of a handbook
entitled Making Sense of Citizenship went to every secondary
school. The response to those mail-outs has been that this is
really valuable, but we need more of this kind of support. The
enthusiasm is there but the means is not always there. Certainly,
in terms of customer satisfaction, where it is genuinely tried
with the customer, the customer really likes it, but there are
still some customers who have not experienced it or who have got
the very poor version.
Q93 Chairman: You say there is a
patchy delivery. It may be the schools in the leafy suburbs who
are fully on course with a nice course and permeating the whole
culture of the school around the citizenship, but if it was not
happening in more difficult inner-city schools, where there were
ethnic mixes and so on, we would be more concerned. Is there that
patchiness? Is the success really the soft success rather than
the hard success?
Mr Breslin: There are some hard
successes and some soft successes. I agree entirely with the point
you make. It comes back to the supplementary point that you made
earlier about should we not be leaving this to family, to home,
to church groups and so on and all of those institutions have
a vital role to play in this, but what that cannot guarantee is
a specific entitlement around education to be effective in a democracy
for young people. That is why we have got to get it into all schools.
We know that some of the schools that would benefit most from
good citizenship practice, schools in challenging circumstances
and so forth, are so under the cosh with regard to a range of
other things that unless we can find ways of enabling them to
buy the space to take this on they do not get the benefit of it.
Equally, we know that where schools in just those circumstances
have taken it on it has been a fantastic tool in school transformation.
In the suburbs we have a slightly reverse problem in some cases
where the highly academic, highly successful school is kind of
saying if we do this that is one less examination or it is not
really our core business in terms of getting the grades through
and all the rest of it. That is one reason why tools like the
GCSEs are important. There is unevenness both in the suburbs and
in the successful schools. We have to win the case with aspirant
middle-class families and parents sometimes where we say if your
son or daughter can develop the range of skills that this curriculum
offers that might be more valuable than the eleventh GCSE. We
equally have to win the case with the head teacher in very challenging
circumstances who says, "Look, I'm getting revisited by Ofsted
next week. I have got staff shortages and all the rest of it and
you expect me to do this." I do not think there is a straight
line of achievement in the successful and failure in the difficult,
but there is a pattern in each and we need to work out an effective
means of targeting support, hence our call for a national strategy
in this respect.
Q94 Mr Carswell: Are your organisations
funded by the state?
Mr Breslin: We are an independent
educational charity.
Q95 Mr Carswell: Funded by the state?
Mr Breslin: We are not funded
by the state. We do undertake some project work that may be commissioned
by the QCA for instance.
Q96 Mr Carswell: But the money comes
from the QCA.
Mr Breslin: If they ask us to
do a particular task, we will have a discussion with them about
the funding it will take to do that. We do not receive any direct
core funding from the state or any state body.
Q97 Mr Carswell: Mr Waller?
Mr Waller: We are a membership
organisation, but we also have project funding from a variety
of government and non-government institutions, including the DfES,
the TDA and independent companies as well.
Q98 Mr Carswell: Do you feel the
state ought to define citizenship? Is it not quite illiberal that
the state should be defining citizenship? We have seen some very
extremist right-wing and extreme left-wing governments in history
who have allowed the state to define citizenship. Is there not
something alarmingly illiberal about having the state defining
citizenship?
Mr Waters: I think that would
be a lovely question for GCSE or A level perhaps, the notion that
the state should be defining these things as being debated by
Parliament.
Q99 Mr Carswell: I have yet to have
the chance to vote on it.
Mr Waters: The position we are
in is that which has been determined. QCA is carrying out the
expectations placed upon it.
Mr Breslin: I think the point
you raise applies as much to the question of whether we have a
National Curriculum at all. I fully accept the risk of political
extremists in power and all the rest of it. If we give young people
the citizenship skills, if we give them political literacy, we
equip them to best respond to exactly that kind of political danger.
That is part of the point of doing it.
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