Examination of Witnesses (Questions 180-194)
MR CHRIS
WALLER, MS
BERNADETTE JOSLIN,
MR MICK
WATERS AND
MR TONY
BRESLIN
26 APRIL 2006
Q180 Mr Carswell: He belongs to a
quango called the House of Lords!
Ms Joslin: To reiterate what other
colleagues have said, obviously we are the voice of our customers,
who are young people and staff, and obviously we respond to recommendations
from Ofsted, if you look at our Ofsted report, our evaluation,
et cetera. We are not a quango, we are a charity.
Mr Waller: One group that you
have not mentioned are the local authorities, the town and city
councils. They have a very vested interest in voter turnout and
are equally interested in supporting young people in schools in
their citizenship learning. I have got copies of our teaching
citizenship journal. There is an excellent article by the workers
of East Hampshire District Council about the work they have been
doing in schools. This is not something that they would have done
20 or 30 years ago, dedicating six hours to each of the seven
secondary schools in their local authority area. That is a huge
amount of time that they are investing. It is not just about getting
voter support, it is also about ensuring that young people have
an understanding about how the democratic process works and also
how local services are delivered.
Q181 Dr Blackman-Woods: Are there
any parts of the curriculum that you feel need strengthening because
they are taught less well or less consistently across the piece
at the moment?
Mr Waller: I think we all agree
that political literacy and law related learning are probably
the areas of greatest challenge for teachers. We need to ensure
that the teaching about that is not what Tony would call "new
civics" but is dynamic and participative. Those are the areas
of the curriculum that, perhaps, teachers are most challenged
by. Certainly the majority of my work in schools and with local
authorities is about helping teachers to explore those issues
and about considering resources to support the teaching of those
two issues.
Mr Breslin: All of that and the
confidence to teach about controversial issues as they arise in
sensitive and appropriate ways.
Q182 Dr Blackman-Woods: Can you tell
us whether the QCA is intending to slim down the curriculum at
Key Stage 3? Is that still something that is being looked at?
Mr Waters: The expectation is
that the curriculum at Key Stage 3 will be slimmed down across
all subject areas. Within citizenship we are concerned to make
sure that the subject comes alive for young people in the way
that has been described this morning and that we do try to address
the couple of issues which have just been raised, those areas
around political aspects of education, and the confidence to take
on controversial issues at what is an incredibly difficult time
for many young people as they go through adolescence.
Q183 Dr Blackman-Woods: Whose responsibility
do you think it is to clarify the content of citizenship education,
I am thinking particularly of PSHE. There are often overlaps,
I think you have already suggested some of that earlier. Who should
be clarifying that? Whose role is it to communicate what is distinctive
about the citizenship education curriculum?
Mr Breslin: One of the things
that we have asked for is the production of further guidance on
just that issue.
Q184 Dr Blackman-Woods: Where from?
Where have you asked?
Mr Breslin: I suggest that it
would be from the Department in the first instance, and I suspect
that the QCA might have valuable contributions there as well.
That is a key area. We need to get round this notion that you
simply drop the responsibility on form tutors alongside the homework,
diaries and the records of achievement and hope that it will get
done. Where practice is at its weakest, that is the case and that
is where teachers feel least supported.
Mr Waters: It is our job to give
advice to ministers about the content of the curriculum and the
way in which the curriculum should be organised, and it goes on
from there into being enacted in schools. We, as QCA, can help
schools to make sense of the expectations upon them and help them
to structure a curriculum. Our challenge, as I said a couple of
times, is to do that where we give advice on how each subject
can contribute to the developments in other subjects as well as
in their own.
Q185 Dr Blackman-Woods: In terms
of overall clarification though, are you saying it is ministers
or are you saying it is the DfES or is it both, the DfES following
on from ministers?
Mr Waters: The DfES gives the
information to schools, yes.
Q186 Dr Blackman-Woods: I am not
sure that we have really got the answer to whose primary role
is it to clarify, number one, what is distinctive about citizenship
education and then communicating that in terms of other areas
of the curriculum?
Mr Breslin: I would like to hear
more and clearer messages on that. We have had good support from
Lord Adonis and from ministers on that. I would want to see the
Department and the citizenship team in the Department sufficiently
resourced to provide that kind of guidance to schools and, where
appropriate, to ask other agencies that it works with to provide
additional guidance or support or whatever it may be.
Mr Waters: The QCA is given remits
to advise on the curriculum. We consult with stakeholders, we
involve people in reviews, we come back to ministers with advice
and the process goes on from there.
Dr Blackman-Woods: That is helpful, thank
you.
Q187 Mr Chaytor: Do the schools with
the best practice rigidly segregate citizenship from PSHE or do
they deliberately build bridges or overlap the system?
Mr Breslin: The evidence from
the NFER study, and all of the anecdotal evidence that we pick
up, is that usually the most effective practice flows from having
a dedicated, well-trained team with a clear co-ordinator and a
clearly branded curriculum space with citizenship very strong
in that title. There are very sophisticated models of effectively
integrating PSHE and citizenship into joint programmes, but too
often those are proposed on the basis of cost-saving and time
factors rather than what is required. Clearly identified citizenship
on the curriculum but well-linked and sometimes partnered with
two or three carrier subjects. The least effective tends to be
"It is everywhere, we have got an audit that shows it",
because usually the audit does not line up with the classroom
practice; the teachers do not know they are doing it and the pupils
do not know they are learning it.
Q188 Mr Chaytor: There is no such
thing as a short GCSE in PSHE?
Mr Waters: No.
Q189 Mr Chaytor: There are no proposals
in any way to certify PSHE?
Mr Waters: No. I would agree with
what was just said. When you talked about what do the best schools
do, the best schools are varied. The best schools do not do just
one thing, but there is a feature of the best schools which is
that they make the learning explicit, whether it is PSHE or citizenship,
or history or physics. Citizenship in physics is made explicit
and citizenship in the daily life of the school and the active
involvement of pupils in the community is made explicit, it does
not happen by chance. The children who understand what they are
doing, and why they are doing it, are the ones who make the most
progress. Citizenship and PSHE can go together but so can citizenship
and mathematics and so can citizenship and art. It is making the
learning come to truth for children which brings the subject on,
whatever circumstances they are in.
Q190 Mr Carswell: This is to do with
the practical and political support for citizenship. The first
one is to try and draw out your thoughts about the role of local
authorities. The second question I will ask is about the role
of Government. Why are some local authorities able to provide
good support on citizenship while others struggle? What is it
about those that are good that differentiates them from those
that are bad?
Mr Waller: I would say there are
a number of factors. The emergence of Children Services is not
necessarily a positive. You are very lucky in having John Clarke,
who is Deputy Director from Hamphire, from an education background,
whereas the Director of Children Services is from a health background.
Often as citizenship slips in that respect, and in terms of the
PSHE format, the sex and drugs becomes more prominent and the
support for that. Also, I think there are a number of local authorities
where there are so many other responsibilities that their lead
inspector or advisor has that citizenship being the newest is
the one which is least defined in their own minds. That is where
they often seek support from ACT and from myself in helping them
to develop that. Also, often there is confusion that citizenship
can merely be slipped inside, or allied too closely to, for example,
PSHE or careers or work-related learning and it loses its identity.
Therefore, those are all challenges that need to be met. Some
local authorities are very good at meeting those challenges and
are ring-fencing money and expertise to enable the leadership
there to be very dominant, others are not so well equipped to
do that.
Mr Breslin: All of the issues
that we have talked about in terms of leadership and resourcing
in schools in a sense replicate themselves in the local authority
where there is expertise and it is a priority, and so forth. Especially
given the changing status of local authorities and their changing
role, I think we do need to look seriously at what local infrastructure
we need to provide the support that we certainly are all saying
is needed. One thing that I would look across to there on your
part is fantastically effective organisations, local education
business partnerships, that have played a massive role over the
last 15 years. I began my work in this area by working with them
as a teacher. They are doing massively effective work in terms
of bringing local businesses, other groups, the work-related curriculum,
enterprising and so forth into classrooms and schools out into
the workplace and so forth. There might be some sort of infrastructure
that can do the same for the kind of community and voluntary groups
and civic institutions that the citizenship community needs to
work with and citizenship teachers need to work with, or it might
be that we have some serious conversations with the education
and business partnerships about their remit in that respect. We
need to think about whether we need different or complementary
local structures and I just think there is something to learn
from EBPs there.
Q191 Mr Chaytor: This question is
about national government. Do all witnesses agree that a national
strategy for citizenship education akin to literacy and numeracy
strategies is necessary and desirable?
Mr Breslin: Yes.
Mr Waters: I think it would be
important to have a national focus on citizenship.
Ms Joslin: Inevitably I would
like more attention turned to post-16 citizenship and how it fits
into the whole picture as part of a bigger strategy.
Mr Waller: The DfES does have
a national strategy and that needs to be supported by Government
and to be recognised, but the words "national strategy"
attached to it would be even better.
Mr Chaytor: I thought you might favour
it. Anyone else?
Q192 Chairman: In terms of rights,
you talked about the East Hampshire innovation in rights, respect
and responsibility, that is something which is used widely by
schools, is it?
Mr Waller: It is a programme that
began in association with the institutions in Nova Scotia about
five or six years ago now. It has been adopted by most of the
primary schools as a way of putting the UN Convention on the Rights
of the Child at the heart of the way in which the school functions
as an institution so that all members, visitors, adults, children
and young people, are seen as equal partners in decisions which
are made. That has now moved to a training phase for secondary
schools in Hampshire, but more significantly it has also been
adopted as a model of practice by the county council and that
should be replicated in all its other services. One might say
that this is utopian, but if that is an intent then at the heart
of it this idea of respect and responsibility and right, core
ideas from citizenship, over a period of time is a very, very
powerful message that the county council, as well as the education
or Children Services' provider is sending out about the importance
of communities seeing themselves as having key responsibilities
and attitudes to one another that are very positive. It is a very
interesting model, but it requires a lot of support financially
and in terms of having faith in that respect. I believe that there
was pump-priming from the innovation unit at the DfES initially
but the local authority has now taken this on board and sees this
as being part of their core training for secondary schools this
year and next year, particularly head teachers, and that is 78
schools. That is very important.
Q193 Chairman: This has been a very
good session. Is there any quick word you want to impart to the
Committee that you think we have missed in terms of our interrogation?
Is there anything you want to leave us with?
Mr Breslin: I would implore you
to look, when or if you speak to the Home Office, there are the
issues around diversity, community-cohesion and those matters
but they have also been key movers in terms of the Russell Commission
outcomes around volunteering and charitable-giving. That whole
aspect of the citizenship agenda is important to look at. At the
DCA there is a recently launched taskforce on public legal education
to educate people about the law and the DCA is doing a lot of
good work in this area as well. I would implore you when you speak
to those departments to look at some of those agendas.
Ms Joslin: With post-16 citizenship,
I would like to have more attention turned to that.
Q194 Chairman: Should it be part
of the university curriculum?
Ms Joslin: I think more research
needs to be done on that, on whether or not it is feasible. We
have got proven evidence that it has worked. It has been particularly
exciting. We have got some really creative things going on. It
has been active in a way, perhaps, that some aspects which pre-16
citizenship has not been, and I could tell you more about that.
It has been very beneficial to lots of different stakeholders.
Again, going back to the key issue of training, it is post-16
as well as pre-16. I would like to urge you, again I mentioned
this, please invite some young people along to talk to you about
their experience of it. We have just made a young people's DVD
with a group of young people who put their own views about what
it is and what it means to them. It is designed to be shown with
other young people and it is very powerful material. Speak to
young people and from a post-16 point of view hear what they have
learnt because, as I said, I think they are the best ambassadors
of why this is such an important initiative.
Mr Waller: We did not speak much
about Key Stages 1 and 2, Early Years Foundation and I think we
must not forget that; there needs to be focus on that at some
stage. It has certainly been a really good year for Citizenship
2006, the two things I mention, the CPD certificate and the CPD
handbook, but also the fact that this has happened today on the
back of the previous Select Committee hearing is really good news
for us. We came here very excited to be able to talk about something
that we are very enthusiastic about, and we believe that lots
and lots of teachers and young people are incredibly enthusiastic
about it. Some young people state in evidence to us that citizenship,
where it is taught well, is the best part of their learning experience.
Mr Waters: My job is to create
a curriculum that inspires and challenges all young people and
prepares them for the future. The future will be brighter if we
get our young people to understand citizenship and take a full
and active part in it.
Chairman: Thank you. Thank you for your
attendance. We intend to make this a thorough and useful inquiry
and we hope it can add value.
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