Citizenship Curriculum

Last month I published, alongside my annual report, a subject report on the development of citizenship in schools. The report celebrates the success of some schools in implementing the citizenship curriculum. It praises those schools where there has been substantial developments in the subject and which now go a long way towards fulfilling national curriculum requirements. In the report, we are critical of schools which have not taken citizenship seriously, either through reluctance or lack of capacity to make appropriate provision in the curriculum. Citizenship is marginalized in the curriculum in one-fifth of schools. It is less well established in the curriculum than other subjects, and less well taught and some critics have seized on this as a reason for wanting to step back from supporting it. Yet, the progress made to date by the more committed schools suggests that the reasons for introducing citizenship are both worthwhile and can be fulfilled, given the time and resources. Indeed, those reasons are given added weight by national and global events of the past few months. While not claiming too much, citizenship can address core skills, attitudes, and values that young people need to consider as they come to terms with a changing world. The main problems standing in the way of the implementation of citizenship continue to be: the lack of commitment on the part of many school leaders; an insufficient amount of initial and in-service training provision to ensure that every school can call upon teachers with subject expertise; and its uncertain place in the curriculum.