Looking to the Future – a Nuffield-ACT seminar

The Nuffield Foundation and the Association for Citizenship Teaching joined forces recently to hold a seminar which aimed to explore the future of Citizenship. Teachers, advisers, representatives of QCA, the DfES, the HMI responsible for Citizenship and many others met to discuss a range of issues. Discussion was prompted by inputs from Liz Craft of QCA, Farid Panjwani of the Institute for Muslim studies, Roberta Blackman-Woods MP, Keith Ajegbo and Bernard Crick.

Those present addressed four key questions:
• Should the objectives of Citizenship education be changing - if so, how?

• What are the features of Citizenship education that must not change?

• How can Citizenship education be made more effective in schools?

• There is a small but growing body of evidence that suggests that attainment rises when schools take participation seriously. What can be done to build on this?

The seminar was timely because there are many issues relating to Citizenship that are under discussion including the nature of the subject. Should it include Britishness and British social and cultural history? What will full course GCSE and an AS and A2 look like? How will the KS3 and KS4 programmes of study develop?

A report (2.9 MB) based on the event is now available to download and read in full.