Examination of Witnesses (Questions 260-263)
MS JESSICA
GOLD, MS
RAJI HUNJAN,
MR TOM
WYLIE AND
MR JULES
MASON
15 MAY 2006
Q260 Mr Marsden: Through you, Chairman,
I think Tom was nodding; do you want to add something?
Mr Wylie: I think colleagues have
said it. I think it is the three. I have taught it myself, I have
taught history on the British constitution, as it was then called.
You do need the specific elements so that you can help people
to be clear where the hand-holds are, a bit like the Bullock Report
on English, many years ago, where every teacher is a citizenship
teacher, so you do want to see its connections and, I would say,
the Whig view of history, even the poetry of John Clare, etc.,
can we see where it connects in other subjects. If it is not then
lived out in what they experience in the school, then the teaching
will take it only so far, if they do not feel respected and able
to participate to the different levels of their interests and
ability in the school itself then people will disregard the taught
curriculum, because that is not the message they are getting from
the hidden curriculum.
Q261 Chairman: We are coming to the
end of this session. Tom has now got a gold star for mentioning
John Clare in evidence, but, you three, you are going to have
this feeling of discontent when you leave this Committee, because
as soon as you get out of this room you are going to say to yourself
"I wish I'd told that lot x, or y." You have got a minute
to do it. I will start with Jules. We have missed the point, have
we; what have we missed that we should be alert to? What else
should we be looking at?
Mr Mason: I do not think there
is anything missed. I would just re-emphasise, which bears upon
Tom's last point, that citizenship needs to be lived. I think,
from our perspective, it being seen as vocational, life skills,
so that then beyond compulsory and beyond post-16 education, when
they become real citizens, depending on your perspective, they
can contribute to society. I think that is what citizenship education
is about.
Q262 Chairman: You do not have citizenship
in universities, do you?
Mr Mason: No, but of lifelong
learning everyone is a part.
Q263 Chairman: Perhaps we should
have?
Ms Hunjan: I think I would like
to see more decision-makers and policy-makers involved in supporting
the citizenship curriculum and making it more real through engaging
young people in consultation, through opening up our institutions
in more accessible ways for young people to be involved in them
and actively to engage with young people and see them as citizens
now, not citizens of the future. I would like to see the Education
Unit of Parliament supporting schools more, by making it easier
for them to access the information and understand what is going
on here.
Ms Gold: We think that every school
needs to be supported in the process of establishing an effective,
bottom-up student participation infrastructure, an infrastructure
that all young people now have to feed into, access and have a
voice through, as opposed to it being just an elite couple of
students who meet in the head's office. It is a bottom-up structure,
through form councils, through class councils, and schools should
have a specific part of their budget which every year can be spent
on developing young people's skills in participation and leadership.
Mr Wylie: Encourage schools to
have a set of standards which cover both the taught curriculum
and the hidden curriculum of the school as an institution, and
connect both of those to the real world and not simply the institution.
Chairman: Thank you very much for evidence.
We have enjoyed it and it has been a very lively session. Thank
you very, very much.
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