Submission from Parliamentary Education
Service (SC-37)
SUBMITTER
1. Tom O'Leary is Head of Parliament's Education
Service and has been in post since October 2007. He has a background
in education and online provision in the public sector and is
a qualified secondary teacher.
BACKGROUND
2. Parliament's bicameral Education Service
has grown significantly in recent years as a result of increased
interest in educational provision amongst Members of both the
House of Commons and the House of Lords, and in response to external
developments such as the introduction of citizenship education
to the National Curriculum.
3. The Education Service is part of the
Public Information Directorate in the Department of Information
Services. The Service works alongside the House of Commons Information
Office, the Visitor Services team, the Web Centre, the new Parliamentary
Outreach team and other colleagues in both Houses to deliver Parliament's
public engagement strategy, as overseen by the Group on Information
to the Public (GIP).[99]
There are three main strands to the public engagement strategy:
Welcoming visitors to Parliament
The Education Service is active in all three
areas.
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
Opportunity, Reach and Access
4. The impact of Parliament's Education
Service, as it works with ever increasing numbers of school children
from all backgrounds across the UK, has the potential (in combination
with many other factors) to encourage greater diversity of Parliamentary
representation in the longer term.
Education Service aims
5. The Education Service works with schools
and Members of both Houses of Parliament to support young people
in developing their understanding of Parliament and democracy.
It aims to:
inform young people about the role, work
and history of Parliament through educational visits, tours, publications
and outreach
engage young people to understand the
relevance of Parliament and democracy today through active learning
empower young people to get involved
by equipping them with the knowledge and skills to take part
6. To achieve this, the Education Service
offers resources and support for students and teachers including:
an exciting range of visit programmes
catered to learning needs
an outreach programme, including teacher
training and student workshops
online, print and DVD classroom resources
on the work of Parliament
Education Service Impact
7. Opportunity Of all the groups
regularly visiting and experiencing contact with Westminster,
school children best reflect a cross-section of society, and thus
represent a powerful opportunity to encourage broader engagement
with Parliament. It is often the case that the only visit a person
makes to Parliament during their life time is when they are at
school. During lessons on Citizenship, it may also be the only
time that the processes and structures of Parliament and government
are explained. Therefore, by welcoming school visits to Westminster,
providing high quality resources and creating regular contact
with parliamentarians, there is the potential to increase greatly
young people's sense of access to Parliament and its processes.
It is possible that this sense of access and relevance will play
a part, alongside a complex set of drivers and influences, in
helping broaden diversity of political representation in the longer
term.
8. Reach To realise the ambition
to connect with as many young people as possible, Parliament is
pursuing a rapid expansion of its education provision. For example
visits to Parliament by school children have risen by over 200%
in the last three years to around 37,000 in 2008-09. On average
a maximum of 40 schools a week visit Parliament through the
Education Service. An illustration of the demand occurred recently
when nearly 400 visits slots (which are released in phases)
were booked by schools in a single day. However, current numbers
are not expected to rise much further because of accommodation
constraints at present. To address this situation a dedicated
education centre is planned for 2012-13 which will increase
capacity to 100,000 a year. Whilst a visit to Parliament,
with the opportunity to meet a Parliamentarian, is highly prized,
it is not possible to make this available to every school, even
with the planned extra capacity. Therefore, the importance of
the Education Outreach programmes and the resource provision (online
and in print) cannot be underestimated. A new online education
channel (www.parliament.uk/education)
was launched in 2008. The Education Outreach programme trains
over 1,000 teachers a year and also connects with many thousands
of students in areas remote from Westminster. Underpinning this
work is a set of award-winning resources in print and film which
are constantly reviewed and updated. The aim of the Education
Service is to achieve a meaningful engagement with every school
child in the UK as they progress through their education. The
Education Service is also forging relationships with relevant
partners who are working on political literacy initiatives across
the country.
9. Equality of Access Ensuring equality
of access for schools is a priority for Parliament as the current
expansion takes place. In regard to physical visits, the current
and planned increase in provision has significantly extended the
availability of the visits programme. However, potential barriers
still exist and work is underway to ensure that schools coming
to Parliament reflect a genuine cross section of society. For
instance, the location of Westminster represents a significant
issue for some potential users in terms of travel costs. With
this is mind, a recent instruction from the House of Commons Administration
Committee to pilot a travel subsidy is underway and early indications
are showing that it is having an impact on the geographical spread
and balance of the schools visiting. With a view to encouraging
greater diversity the Education Service is also obtaining better
information about the background of the school children visiting
Westminster. This information will enable targeted marketing and
financial help to ensure that groups who do not make use of the
Education Service are encouraged and enabled to do so. The service
also actively welcomes visits from groups with special needs.
Beyond the physical visits, the outreach and publications programmes
mentioned above significantly increase access as they are available
to all users on the same terms. In certain situations they are
also more accessible for learners with particular needs.
Education Service activities
10. The work of the Education Service broadly
divides into three areas which are described in some more detail
here:
11. Education Visits A programme
of hour-long workshops plus an 75 minute tour of Parliament
is offered to UK schools, for children aged seven to 18. All of
the workshops introduce students to how Parliament works focusing
in particular (though not exclusively) on the part played by both
Houses in scrutiny and the passing of legislation. The visits
include a question and answer session with the school's MP subject
to their availability. The sessions are tailored to meet the requirements
of the national curriculum (citizenship and politics) and differentiated
by age and ability. A programme of technology integration is underway
and many workshops make use of interactive white boards and hand
held voting pods. Whilst other opportunities to work with young
people coming into Parliament are also being pursued, the core
workshop programme is now at capacity as mentioned above.
12. For clarification it is important to
note that school children currently visiting Parliament via Member-sponsored
tours are booked in through the Central Tours Office (CTO) and
do not participate in Education Service programmes. It is estimated
this may amount to over 40,000 young people a year. Options
are currently being investigated to ensure these visitors receive
some input from the Education Service during their time at Parliament.
Once the Education Centre is in place structured engagement with
these groups will be possible.
13. Resources The Education Service
produces materials which support teaching and learning about Parliament
in print, film and on the Internet. Young people are consuming
information in very different ways from their predecessors and
the opportunities this represents are being exploited. The new
website www.parliament.uk/education,
was launched in October 2008 and marks the beginning of an
ambitious programme to create exciting and engaging online content
including games that teach about political literacy for use by
students and their teachers. It is already receiving 15,000 visits
a month which is expected to grow considerably. The website is
currently commissioning a range of resources from downloadable
worksheets for teachers and students to a game which will explore
the work of an MP. Alongside this the service has made a series
of films, including the award winning You've got the Power,
which has been ordered by over 1700 schools in the last six
months. For the first time a series of cut down versions of this
film are about to be posted online to make them more widely available.
Finally, there are a number of very popular printed publications
which are distributed free of charge and a new updated set is
planned for 2009.
14. Education Outreach The Education
Outreach Team trains teachers to increase their knowledge and
understanding of Parliament to enable them to teach about political
literacy and parliamentary democracy with increased confidence
and with greater effectiveness. At a time when reports about the
teaching of citizenship in schools continue to highlight a weakness
in covering political literacy, this work is of increasing importance.
The annual Teacher Institute run by the Education Service provides
trainee citizenship teachers with the opportunity to spend a week
at Westminster, learning about Parliamentary processes across
both Houses and engaging first hand with the work and role of
Parliament. This year alone, the team has worked with 1,000 teachers.
The team also works directly with students in schools, concentrating
in particular on schools from areas where travel to Westminster
is a significant barrier. Recent and planned visits include Northern
Ireland, Scotland, the Orkneys and the Shetland Islands.
Vision for the Education Centre
15. A dedicated education facility in
the heart of Westminster[100]
The realisation of the proposed five classroom facility will significantly
increase the capacity of the Education Service to deliver its
programmes for visiting school groups and to improve further its
services for Members of both Houses. The learning spaces will
be far better suited to teaching than is currently the case and
will include cutting edge ICT facilities. Reserved lunch facilities
and dedicated children's toilets will greatly improve the experience
of visiting schools as they do not have these at present. The
current number of 37,000 school children taking part in workshops
will rise to a potential 100,000 and this figure is likely
to include many of the children on Member-sponsored CTO tours
mentioned above. It is anticipated that the core programme of
visits, the content of which covers the work of both Houses, will
form the main part of this increased capacity. Members of both
Houses will continue to have the opportunity to meet visiting
school groups on a range of programmes, and the increased room
capacity will also allow more special events, including teacher
training, to take place on site.
Working for both Houses of Parliament
16. A bicameral service The Education
Service is funded 70:30 (Commons:Lords) for running costs
and 60:40 (Commons:Lords) for capital costs. All of the content
delivered by the service actively covers the role of both Houses
which can be observed in the workshop programme. For example,
students are encouraged to propose bills and follow their progress
between the two chambers and at committee stage(s), proposing
and voting on amendments. The Education Service works closely
with other parliamentary education initiatives such as the Lord
Speaker's Outreach programme.
99 GIP is a bicameral meeting of senior officials which
sets Parliament's public engagement strategy. Back
100
Decision to build an education centre
During 2006 the House of Commons Administration Sub-Committee
worked with the House of Lords Information Committee conducting
a concurrent inquiry into visitor facilities and a proposed visitor
centre for Parliament. This was in line with the recommendations
of the 2004 Report of the Select Committee on Modernisation
of the House of Commons, Connecting Parliament with the Public
(HC 368).
On 27 March 2007 the Administration Committee published
its report Improving Facilities for Educational Visitors to
Parliament (HC 434). This did not recommend proposals to build
a visitor centre. However, it did recommend "that a dedicated
space for school visitors of approximately 1,000m2 (consisting
of flexible accommodation of five classrooms with ancillary space
for storage, toilet facilities, a lunch area and locker space)
should be sought either on or off the existing Estate-the exact
space depending on what becomes available and at what cost."
The House of Commons approved this on 12 June 2007.
On 11 June 2007 the House of Lords Information Committee
published its own report on Improving Facilities for Educational
Visitors to Parliament. This report recognised that there
were strong arguments in favour of a full visitor centre but that
enhancing education facilities is an important first step to improving
facilities for visitors. It recommended that the House endorse
the recommendation from the Administration Committee, subject
to the final design, the location and the cost being approved
by the appropriate authorities. Back
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