Topic: Understanding Citizenship

Topic: Understanding Citizenship Lesson: What s Citizenship got to do with me? Resources: 1. Resource 1 Citizenship the keys to your future 2. Resource 2 What are these Year 11 students interested in? 3. Resource 3 How are Citizenship lessons useful in real life? 4. Resource 4 What do I want to know more about? 5. Resource 5 The keys to my future KS or Year Group: Year 10/11 Objectives: Students can appreciate that the government values Citizenship education for young people. Students can understand why Citizenship is relevant to their own lives. National Curriculum Key Concepts: due to the nature of the lesson, a brief overview of many concepts is given. Key Processes: 2.1a, 2.2b Range and Content: due to the nature of the lesson, a brief overview of many issues is given. Curriculum Opportunities: 4a, 4b, 4c Lesson overview Students find out why Citizenship lessons actually exist! They explore what the government expects young people to learn within Citizenship education. They also discuss the ways in which Citizenship lessons can meet their personal needs, thus reflecting upon the practical applications of Citizenship knowledge and skills. Starter Share the lesson objectives with students. Ask students to read the paragraph at the top of Resource 1 Citizenship the keys to your future. www.citizenshipteacher.co.uk 2009 12856 Page 1 of 10

Tell students that Citizenship is a difficult subject. Justify this by reminding them that it covers a wide range of issues and topics, that laws change regularly, that different issues crop up in the news daily, and that Citizenship skills need lots of practice. Refer students to the questions on Resource 1, which you may choose to put on the whiteboard. Ask students to discuss a few questions of their choice in small groups. Invite volunteers to feed back some of their answers. Examples of good feedback: 4. I think that I would use the local police s website or the Citizen s Advice Bureau website. It would probably also be useful to go on the local council s website. 6. I know that people in the UK are supposed to be treated equally, but I don t think that it happens in reality. Elderly people don t seem to get treated as well as young people in hospitals. My mum works as a nurse and she reckons that old people get inferior treatment because of their age. 9. I know that parents have a duty to provide for their children and to treat them in a certain way. The laws about child neglect exist so that Social Services can protect children from harm. Praise those who gave feedback. Ask students to read through Resource 2 What are these Year 11 students interested in? Point out that all of the aims of these Year 11 students can be met through Citizenship lessons. Main activity Activity 1: Show students Resource 3 How are Citizenship lessons useful in real life? and explain that this shows the ways in which skills from Citizenship lessons can be applied to real life. Ask students to circle key words and terms (i.e. important Citizenship vocabulary). Examples of key words and terms from Resource 3: employment tribunal discrimination asylum seeker immigrant debate controversial tax politician consumer rights refund. www.citizenshipteacher.co.uk 2009 12856 Page 2 of 10

Activity 2: Refer the students to Resource 4 What do I want to know more about? Ask a student to read out the example provided on the sheet, and point out that the table will highlight practical ways in which Citizenship lessons can improve their lives. Ask students (working in pairs) to fill in the two blank rows of the table using examples from their own lives. Remind students to refer to the key words and terms from Resource 3 when choosing their issues for the table. Invite volunteers to share what they wrote in the table. Examples of good responses: I chose the Youth Justice System as my first issue. My example in action was that my brother s in quite a bit of trouble with the police at the moment, and has been assigned a special worker to help him to understand the court system. My personal example is that I got into bother with the police when I was 13. What I want to find out now is whether the police will keep this information on my file when I m an adult. I wanted to choose the Human Rights Act as one of my issues. An example of human rights in action is a politician like Peter Tatchell campaigning for equal rights for gay people. My personal example is that my aunty s gay and isn t sure what will happen if her and her partner want to adopt a baby. I want to find out whether they will have the same right to adopt as a straight couple. Praise those who gave feedback. Ask students to commit to finding out about or acting on one of the issues they wrote about. Plenary Emphasise to students that Citizenship lessons help people to deal with the world around them in a confident way, and that this is why the government feels that it s an invaluable subject. Hand out Resource 5 The keys to my future. (These should be cut in half in advance.) Ask a volunteer to read out the first key in the list. (S)he should then choose another volunteer to read out the next key, and so on. Invite students to comment upon which of the keys seem the most useful. Examples of good responses: I know absolutely nothing about people from different backgrounds, as all of my friends are similar to me. Once I get a job though, I ll probably be mixing with people from all over the country. It s a good idea for me to learn more about other people s cultures and customs now before I go to my first interview. The one that seems most useful to me is the one about building confidence with group work. I need to practise standing up for myself in front of other people. I ve never been very good at it, and I ve got to get better before it s too late. I don t want to turn up at university and not be able to put my opinions across. www.citizenshipteacher.co.uk 2009 12856 Page 3 of 10

Invite volunteers to summarise why Citizenship lessons are useful in real life. Encourage them to think back over the whole lesson in order to provide a detailed response. Example of good summaries: Citizenship lessons give young people the chance to learn how to get the best out of their world. It teaches them how to stand up for their own rights and opinions, and how to help other people to do so. Citizenship lessons teach young people that there is usually no such thing as a right answer and that it is important to respect everyone s opinions. What you learn in Citizenship lessons can help you in real life. Some of the characters in one of the worksheets helped people outside school because of what they had been taught in Citizenship. Also, some of the characters seemed to mature because of Citizenship lessons. For instance, one student decided to stop agreeing with everything that his parents said. Another student decided that, as she didn t like what the government was doing, she would become a politician herself! Citizenship makes pupils see that there is a lot more to the world than the area of the UK where they live. It helps students realise that they have responsibilities to citizens in other countries and to future generations. It is good that the government wants young people to learn about issues such as voting, the prison system, religion and charities. All of us will be able to use our Citizenship skills at some point in our lives, which isn t the case for all of the subjects that we learn at school. Praise those who gave feedback. Aim high Challenge students to prove that they have used Citizenship skills or knowledge outside of school in the last week. Assessment For homework, ask students to follow up on their commitment to find out about or act on the issue they wrote about in the main activity. Students could also find a quote about Citizenship education from an influential public figure. Level 5: Students can describe ways in which the UK is interconnected with the wider world. Students can discuss topical issues. www.citizenshipteacher.co.uk 2009 12856 Page 4 of 10

Level 6: Students are aware of the diversity of opinions about certain controversial issues. Students can describe some of the influences that shape opinions about controversial issues. Level 7: Students can evaluate the roles citizens can take in shaping decisions. Students can compare UK citizens with those in other parts of the world. Level 8: Students can connect information derived from different sources and their own experiences in order to make perceptive observations. Students have a detailed understanding of the concepts of democracy, justice, rights and responsibilities, identities and diversity. Check the web http://curriculum.qca.org.uk/key-stages-3-and- 4/subjects/citizenship/keystage4/index.aspx?return=/key-stages-3-and- 4/subjects/citizenship/index.aspx%3Freturn%3D/sitemap/index.aspx National Curriculum s guide to KS4 Citizenship www.citizenshipfoundation.org.uk The Citizenship Foundation: an organisation devoted to the promotion of Citizenship education http://www.parliament.the-stationeryoffice.co.uk/pa/cm200607/cmselect/cmeduski/147/147.pdf Parliamentary report on Citizenship education Summary of key learning Students can appreciate that the government values Citizenship education for young people. Students can understand why Citizenship is relevant to their own lives. www.citizenshipteacher.co.uk 2009 12856 Page 5 of 10

Resource 1 Citizenship the keys to your future Politicians and teachers believe that Citizenship lessons help young adults by encouraging them to be less passive in terms of how they view wider society. In simple terms, Citizenship education provides you with the keys to your future; it helps you to help yourself. 1. How much do you know about the rights of someone who is under arrest? 2. How does the UK compare with other European countries in terms of homelessness statistics? 3. How skilled are you at persuading a group to share your opinions? 4. Do you know which websites you could use if you needed advice about some problem neighbours? 5. How comfortable would you feel putting forward ideas to your MP over the phone? 6. Do you have reason to believe that everyone in this country is treated equally? 7. Do you understand how the Data Protection Act is relevant to you? 8. Do you know which options are available to British teenagers who would like to study in another European country? 9. Do you understand what the law says about children who are neglected by their biological parents? 10. Are you aware of any British traditions that are gradually changing? www.citizenshipteacher.co.uk 2009 12856 Page 6 of 10

Resource 2 What are these Year 11 students interested in? 1. Jasmine is keen to find out what will happen if she is caught dealing cannabis; she wants to know more about drug classifications and the Youth Justice System. 2. Abram wants to enhance his CV by doing some voluntary work within his local area. He s particularly interested in working with asylum seekers. 3. Anya wants to know how to measure her carbon footprint as she has just been given a car for her birthday. She is keen to find out which websites will give her the best information about energy efficiency. 4. Dwight wants to know more about why terrorism exists, but feels uncomfortable about bringing it up at home. He s determined to find out more about how violent extremism can be tackled, and where it s most prevalent. 5. Fernando just moved to the UK. He wants to establish whether British teenagers care about the same things that he does. His friends from home have strong opinions about the European Union and he s wondering whether young British people do too. 6. Richard doesn t have any gay friends (as far as he knows) and would like to find out whether media stereotypes of gay men are true. He s also intrigued by whether the Human Rights Act is applicable to homosexual citizens. 7. Ulla is passionate about fighting the injustices that she comes across in her daily life. She wants her head teacher to justify why disabled students cannot access the sports hall at her school. She s thinking of organising a protest about discrimination against wheelchair-users. 8. Steph is very passionate about feminism. She wants politicians to make school buses safer for female students and to encourage young women to follow male-dominated career paths. As such, she is keen to lobby her MP about female issues. www.citizenshipteacher.co.uk 2009 12856 Page 7 of 10

Resource 3 How are Citizenship lessons useful in real life? My uncle s boss said that he couldn t get promoted because he was 45. Luckily, we d just done a lesson on employment tribunals. I gave my uncle advice about how to pursue a discrimination case. My friend Elodie joined our school in Year 6. People used to call her a scrounger because she s an asylum seeker. One day we saw a DVD in Citizenship that explained the difference between illegal immigrants and asylum seekers. People don t bully her at all now. I used to think that my parents were right about everything. They taught me that women who have abortions are murderers. A debate that we had the other day made me stop and think though. Maybe my parents are not necessarily right about abortion. Maybe nobody is right! From now on, I m going to think carefully about my views on controversial issues. I ve been copying my parents ideas for a long time, and I want my own now. We had a Citizenship lesson the other day about how taxes are spent and how benefits are allocated to the public. I d never realised how much tax UK workers pay. The shock has inspired me to become a politician; I think that the present government is making a lot of mistakes. Citizenship has made me realise that I have lots of consumer rights. Last month I helped my parents to get a refund on a faulty TV. The manager in the shop was unhelpful at first, so I showed her the list of buyers rights that my teacher had given us. We got our money back straight away! My dad reckons that Citizenship lessons help you to survive in the real world. www.citizenshipteacher.co.uk 2009 12856 Page 8 of 10

Resource 4 What do I want to know more about? In pairs, look at the Citizenship issue in the table below, and read the example provided. Add in your own examples of how a Citizenship issue is affecting/has affected you. Discuss what more you would like to know about that issue, and what you want to do about it. Citizenship issue Consumer rights Example in action I saw a couple get a refund on a faulty TV. The manager in the shop was unhelpful at first, but they knew their rights and so they got their money back quite easily. My example I bought an ipod on holiday in France a few months ago. The volume control isn t working properly so I want to get a new one. I m not sure whether I can return it because I ve had it for three months, plus I bought it abroad. What I d like to learn/do I need to find out whether you can take back an electrical item after you ve had it for a while. I also want to know where you stand if you buy an item in another European country. www.citizenshipteacher.co.uk 2009 12856 Page 9 of 10

Resource 4 The keys to my future Citizenship develops my interest in controversial issues. Citizenship gets me involved in debates. Citizenship teaches me about my rights and responsibilities. Citizenship informs me about the laws that apply to people my age. Citizenship encourages me to play an active role in my community. Citizenship helps me to respect people from all backgrounds. Citizenship invites me to explore UK citizens values. Citizenship tells me how society has changed/is changing in the UK. Citizenship allows me to challenge injustices. Citizenship exposes me to other people s opinions and ideas. Citizenship makes me reflect upon the consequences of my actions. Citizenship gets me involved in democracy. Citizenship enhances my confidence about working in groups. The keys to my future Citizenship develops my interest in controversial issues. Citizenship gets me involved in debates. Citizenship teaches me about my rights and responsibilities. Citizenship informs me about the laws that apply to people my age. Citizenship encourages me to play an active role in my community. Citizenship helps me to respect people from all backgrounds. Citizenship invites me to explore UK citizens values. Citizenship tells me how society has changed/is changing in the UK. Citizenship allows me to challenge injustices. Citizenship exposes me to other people s opinions and ideas. Citizenship makes me reflect upon the consequences of my actions. Citizenship gets me involved in democracy. Citizenship enhances my confidence about working in groups. www.citizenshipteacher.co.uk 2009 12856 Page 10 of 10