More than 130 teachers and a wide range of organisations met in the British Library yesterday to discuss the future of citizenship and the National Curriculum, at the Association for Citizenship Teaching’s annual conference in London.

At Democratic Life we believe teachers and pupils have a key role in influencing the future of the curriculum by showcasing the best citizenship teaching.

Liz Moorse addressed the conference on behalf of Democratic Life with a discussion of the Government’s curriculum review and the possible outcomes for subjects. The current National Curriculum, which includes statutory citizenship, continues for another few years. According to the Government’s timetable, first teaching of any new curriculum will begin in 2014.

Liz introduced the next phase of Democratic Life activity to strengthen citizenship education and maintain it as a statutory subject. Promoting high quality teaching and learning to local MPs was seen as an important element.

Helen Trivers led two sessions on effective campaigning and lobbying. Designed for us by Helen and colleagues at Amnesty International UK, the workshop aims to develop knowledge and understanding of how our democracy and political system work, as well as skills of enquiry, critical thinking, leadership and how to influence and persuade.

Teachers joined in activities and developed their own ideas to use with their pupils to showcase citizenship education to their MPs and wider communities. Democratic Life shall be encouraging and supporting teachers in this.

For the rest of the conference teachers took part in a range of other professional development workshops, which covered an array of topics from ‘Rights and responsibilities – what every citizen needs to know’ to ‘The Art of Asking (and answering) – controversial issues’.

Presentation

Notes

The Association for Citizenship Teaching (ACT) is the professional subject association for those who teach citizenship in schools. It has over 2,000 members.

Amnesty International UK provides education and resources to support citizenship education.

Both organisations are founding members of Democratic Life.

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• This entry was posted on Tuesday, June 28th, 2011 at 11:00 am