What we really need in schools is a "Duty for Promote Democracy"

  The revised National curriculum that came into force in schools in September 2008 had three overall aims. The third aim is Responsible Citizens. The bones of this are detailed below. Responsible Citizens

— are well prepared for life and work

— are enterprising

— are able to work cooperatively with others

— respect others and act with integrity

— understand their own and others' cultures and traditions, within the context of British heritage, and

— have a strong sense of their own place in the world

— appreciate the benefits of diversity

— challenge injustice, are committed to human rights and strive to live peaceably with others

— sustain and improve the environment, locally and globally take account of the needs of present and future generations in the choices they make

— can change things for the better.

  The revised Citizenship education curriculum in secondary schools enables teachers and young people to articulate this in detail using a language that has developed since the introduction of the subject in schools in 2002. With the revised Citizenship education curriculum we can now articulate this aim with a clearer language and greater senses of understanding. Citizenship has a role to play in building a participatory, democratic ethos across the whole school. This is known as the "3Cs of Citizenship" and is very much supported by the new curriculum; Citizenship in the curriculum, wider community and culture of the school.

  There is more than just anecdotal evidence that the "old" curriculum was not sufficiently inspiring for young people. A MORI poll in 2000 found that, asked what they did most often in class, students put "copy things from the board" first, and "learn things about the real world" last. Research from the Harvard Graduate School of Education asked students, "when did you feel most intellectually engaged?" Students' responses included, when we have time to:

— help to define the content;

— find a particular direction that interest us;

— create original and public products;

— did something…took part in political action, wrote a letter;

— sensed that the results of our work are not predetermined or fully predictable; and

— when teachers encourage different forms of expression and respect our views.

  Evidence like this supports the new curriculum's emphasis on learning that offers students real choice and real purpose. It also illustrates what an important role Citizenship should have in this transformation.

  In many ways, learning in the Internet-age is racing far ahead of learning in schools. On the Internet, peer assessment is the norm. Think of the millions who comment on each others' photos on Flickr. Everything is cross-curricula. Go to the BBC news website, read up on the US Presidential campaign, link to Barack Obama's views on climate change, link to Al Gore's film An Inconvenient Truth, and then link to the Oscars. You've covered four subjects in four clicks. Knowledge is democratised. Everyone can access it, add to it and review it, as they do on Wikipedia. Collaborative problem-solving is standard. Don't know how to fix your bicycle? Go to any number of cycling forums, share your problem and dozens of people will help you solve it.

  All these changes have one thing in common; public participation. Participation is becoming the norm, or as Charles Leadbeater the commentator on innovation says, "The audience has taken to the stage." At its best, the Internet has created a revolution in democracy and participation, which should have a profound impact on Citizenship education. Mass mobilisation is now possible through sites such as moveon.org and change.org, or consider the example of students in Plymouth who managed to get 10,000 people to sign a Facebook petition to stop the deportation of one of their classmates in the Spring of 2008.

  Soon we will be teaching young people who may still be alive in the 22nd century, but we don't even know what the world will look like in the next decade. So we need to try to offer a curriculum which can prepare young people for a world we cannot yet even imagine. There are currently at least three models of Citizenship education in schools:

  Citizenship for Courtesy: Citizenship is about teaching children good manners and courteous behaviour; to be polite, respectful and pick up litter.

  Citizenship for Cohesion: Citizenship is about teaching children "Britishness", and what makes us and our country who we are.

  Citizenship for Change: Citizenship is about teaching children the knowledge, skills and most importantly the inclination to participate in political and public life.

  While each of these models are important, it is clear in both the Crick Report which launched Citizenship as a statutory subject in 2002, and the new Citizenship programme of study, that the focus for Citizenship should be on the latter model, Citizenship for Change.

  One concise way to sum this up is to say that the purpose of Citizenship education is to build students' sense of political agency. A sense of political agency is your belief that you can effect political change in your school, your community and the wider world. This could be as simple as a willingness to email your MP or raise an issue in school council, or it could be more a more complex and significant commitment, such as campaigning to improve a local park or lobbying to lower the voting age. This is important because it means that in Citizenship our focus must be less on fund-raising for charity and more campaigning for change; fewer Christmas shoe boxes and more boxes of petitions.

  If this is what we are trying to achieve through Citizenship there are two major implications for the way we organize learning in our classrooms, schools and communities. First, we need to give students some say in the content and/or process of learning. We cannot say to them that participation is important, but give them no involvement in their learning. This is consistent with the principles of democracy, motivation and the new curriculum. Second, we need to create opportunities for students to effect change in the world around them. You will not feel political powerful until you've had a powerful experience of acting politically.

  Student voice and student action are therefore two key characteristics of a compelling learning experience in Citizenship. Or to put it another way, we need to begin to explore ways to move from learning that is teacher-led and classroom-based, to learning that is student-led and community-based.

  The new Citizenship programme of study provides a great opportunity to put these principles into action. The new structure of key concepts, key processes and range and content encourages us to focus less on a body of knowledge alone, and more on combining skills and knowledge in a learning experience that empowers young people to take action for change. This learning is embedded by the key concepts with give Citizenship greater depth, rigour and clarity-see diagram.

THE BIG THREE CHALLENGES

Senior leadership:

  We know that the real key to securing Citizenship's future in the next 10 years is support from SLT, specialist Citizenship teachers and discrete Citizenship lessons. While each of these supports the other, ACT's view is that our priority should be specialist Citizenship teachers. We have let down a generation of students by using reluctant, non-specialists to teach Citizenship and we must tackle this as a priority. We do not yet have 1500 specialist Citizenship teachers

in the country, but those we do have tend to be high quality and high energy, who are able to convince SLT to support Citizenship and secure discrete curriculum time. There are no better advocates for the subject than the specialists. The Citizenship CPD course is a step in the right direction, but feedback from around the country about the course is not generally encouraging—we would suggest we could learn some lessons from the PSHE model, which is much more locally based. Nevertheless, we think the real need is to increase the number of PGCE Citizenship courses (especially in places like the Northeast), and the number of places they offer. We need to target Heads in particular, and make a clear and convincing case for how Citizenship contributes to school improvement and community building. One step in the right direction are the films ACT has just had made at British Library, which celebrate the successes of 10 years of Citizenship. These will be used at an NCSL conference for Heads in June this year.

Ofsted:

  One of the issues that has been raised by quite a number of teachers is that Ofsted has given their school a good grade for Citizenship, when they are know they do not warrant it. Many Citizenship teachers actually want the short-comings of their Citizenship teaching exposed by Ofsted so they can use this to improve provision. We need to ensure Ofsted inspectors are suitable trained and rigorous about their Citizenship inspections-demonstrating clear understanding.

The problem of politicians:

  The evidence suggests many simply don't understand what Citizenship is about. This became clear when we attended an education fringe meeting during the last party conference season. In response to a question about Citizenship education, an MP made some vague comments about work experience and life skills. An MP who spoke at the recent Portcullis House Crick Reception reinforced this impression. Some politicians have an understanding that could be described as the model of "Citizenship for Courtesy"—good behaviour, giving to charity and volunteering. We need to find a way to start a dialogue with politicians about this. It may be fair to say that ACT is often struck by how remarkable it is that politicians are reluctant to embrace Citizenship—it is after all an apprenticeship for their profession. A politician, who doesn't support Citizenship, is like a scientist who doesn't support science teaching or perhaps a turkey voting for Christmas!