Practical Resources for Teaching Citizenship in Secondary Classrooms

Ruth Tudor

• Publisher: David Fulton Publishers
• Year: 2013
• eBook ISBN:
  9781136608285
• Topic: Education
• Subtopic: Education General

Based on the New Curriculum for Citizenship, this book provides practitioners in secondary schools with the essential tools needed to teach citizenship. The authors provide an overview of the citizenship order and give guidance on how to fulfill its three main elements: social and moral responsibility, community involvement and political literacy.

The book focuses on curriculum developments, teaching, learning and assessment issues and includes a rationale for planning schemes of work in citizenship for the whole school. It also includes lesson plans, teaching ideas and resources, and step-by-step guidance on assessment.

Emphasis is placed on including all pupils and references are made to cross-curricular links with other subjects.

1
Identity and Belonging

About this chapter

This chapter focuses on the key areas of identity and belonging. All pupils investigate their identity and the cultural, social, political, regional and religious groups that they belong to. At first the focus is on personal identity and then on the different groups and communities to which the pupils belong. They use a range of sources including information and communication technology (ICT) to find out about their family history. The idea of difference and of cultural diversity as a cause for celebration is raised. The focus then moves on to look at the question of British national identity. Pupils find out about ethnic diversity in Britain since prehistoric times and about the legal changes in British citizenship between 1945 and the present day. They use this knowledge and understanding to reflect on and debate the nature of being ‘British’.

Note: There may be particular areas of sensitivity for those who have no knowledge of their personal family history in Section 3 below. Strategies to deal with this are suggested in the Section. In addition, there may be some pupils in some schools (refugees, asylum seekers, ‘transits’) who do not think of themselves as British. However, everyone will have some understanding of what it means to be British because they are currently living here and this should not prevent them from participating fully in all the learning.

1. Who am I?

Activity A: Who am I?

Target Group: Year 7

Learning Objectives

I should leant:

• About ‘Who I am?’ ‘Where do I belong?’ ‘How am I different to others?’
• How and why differences are a cause for celebration.
• To recognise and name some of the groups to which I belong.
• To express ‘Who I am?’ ‘Where do I belong?’ in a work of art.

Curriculum Links

History: Personal identity, diversity, personal, family and local history.
Geography: Communities and belonging. Regional diversity. Using maps.
Languages: Modern, European and home languages. National and European identity.

Individually, ask students to create a ‘Who am I?’ spider diagram, by brainstorming all the characteristics that make them an individual, e.g. I have red hair, I wear spectacles, I am really good at writing but not so good at maths, Pizza is my favourite food, I go to church, I speak Turkish at home and English at school, I am the oldest in my family, I have two stepbrothers and so on.

Individually, ask pupils to use photographs, drawings, magazine cuttings, etc., to make a collage that shows their ideas about ‘Who am I?’ They can add words and sentences in different languages. For example, if the activity is being done as part of French, they could write in French or use their home languages as appropriate.

Discuss the different groups/communities to which the pupils belong. These could be very varied and include ethnic, religious, regional, national, related to age, gender, interests, disability/impairment, second families, etc.

Discuss how pupils could make images about their own groups/communities. They could use photographs, newspaper cuttings. They could design symbols or use existing ones to represent different groups/communities, for example, flags, emblems, mottos, icons, coats of arms.

1. Pupils make their own collage.
2. Ask pupils to present their collage to the class, explaining their images and the ideas behind them.
3. Display all the pupils’ collages and use to identify similarities and differences.
4. Use the presentations or the display to discuss:
   • (a) In what ways are we all different to each other?
   • (b) Why is it good that we are different?
   • (c) Why is it important to think about ‘identity’ (who I am) and ‘belonging’?
5. Discuss how being different can also be a problem. Use the collages to highlight characteristics that people might pick on them for. Talk about how being teased might make someone feel and how this behaviour could be challenged assertively.
6. Some pupils may make links between the characteristics they have identified about themselves and the communities to which they belong. For example, I enjoy Sunday school and I belong to the Catholic Church; I speak Turkish at home and English at school because I am British and my ethnic origin is Turkish.

Taking Community Action!

Ask pupils how they felt about coming to secondary school.

What thoughts and anxieties did they have about ‘fitting in’? How might it have helped to know all the different sorts of people at secondary school?

In groups/as a class, design a brochure for Year 6 children in feeder primary schools. The brochure should show them all the different identities at school and the different groups they belong to. The purpose of the brochure is to give information, to welcome and to reassure Year 6.

2. Who are the British?

Activity A: Who are the British?

Target Group: Years 8 to 9

Learning Objectives

I should learn:

• That the British are made up of different ethnic groups.
• That these different groups have been moving into and settling in Britain since prehistoric times.
• How different groups have made important contributions to British life and culture.
• To take part in a discussion.
• To use what I have found out to think about and discuss ‘What does it mean to be British?’

Curriculum Links

History: Migration and settlement in British history. Identity and diversity.
Languages: Origin and development of English and other languages spoken by the British.
Literacy: Development and use of language.

The boxes in Resource 1: Activity A: Who are the British? give information about some of the groups of people who have migrated to and settled in Britain over time. The first task is to match up each description with the correct ethnic group. Either Pupils can be given cards (30 in total) and asked to ‘find their partner’; or each pupil can be given a copy of the cards and asked to match them up. Useful resources that pupils can use to work out the correct answers include world maps, ICT – websites and CD-ROMs, history, geography and religious education textbooks.

In pairs or small groups, talk about:

• How easy was it to match up the pairs?
• What was interesting to them? Why?
• What new information did they learn?
• Did they disagree with anything on the cards? If so, what?

What have they learnt from this exercise about the question:

• ‘What does it mean to be British’?

For example, does it mean you have to be born here? Does it mean your grandparents have to be born here? Does it mean what colour you are? Does it mean what religion you are? Does it mean you have to live here? Does it mean you have to be a royalist? Does it mean you have to have a British passport? Does it mean you have to feel British? Does it mean you have to always agree with the British government? Does it mean you have to want to be British? What other ideas do you have about what it means to be British?

Write definitions of what it means to be British. They could start like this: ‘A British person is someone who …’

Display the definitions. Which ones do all pupils agree with?

Key words

Refugee	A person who leaves their country because of persecution due to race, religion, political beliefs, nationality, membership of a group.
Asylum seeker	A person who has asked for sanctuary in a country because they are a refugee.

Answers to Resource 1: Activity A: Who are the British?

A	Angles, Saxons, Jutes
B	Roma Gypsies
C	Celts
D	Irish
E	Afghans
F	Kosovan Albanians
G	Bangladeshi
H	African Caribbean
I	Jews
J	Chinese
K	Indians
L	Normans
M	French Huguenots
N	Italians
O	West Africans

Resource 1: Activity A: Who are the British?

A. They came to Britain from northern Eu...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title
• Copyright
• Contents
• Introduction
• 1. Identity and Belonging
• 2. Human Rights for Human Beings
• 3. Law, Justice and Crime
• 4. Power, Democracy and Politics
• 5. Rights, Responsibilities and the World Around Us
• 6. All about the Media
• Useful Contacts
• Appendix A: Assessment for learning: Making progress in citizenship
• Appendix B: Assessment: Using a range of assessors
• Appendix C: Ground rules for discussion and debate