Teach Secondary Issue 14.3

teaching. Through this, they will come to value accuracy, ethics, honesty and integrity, while hopefully getting to explore and experience a range of diverse cultures and positive role models. Participatory citizens As noted by Lee Jerome and Hugh Starkey in their 2021 book, Children’s Rights Education in Diverse Classrooms , it’s important to remember that children are citizens too . As such, while we ought to be ensuring that they’re critically engaged and informed, we should also be enabling them to participate . In a polarised world, this starts with discussion. The Deliberative Classroom project from the Association for Citizenship Teaching (see tinyurl.com/ts143-C4) can help here, as can the classroom tools offered by English Speaking Union (esu.org/resources) . Amnesty International’s books Know Your Rights and ClaimThem for older children, and These Rights Are Your Rights for younger readers contain a range of case studies showing children utilising their rights. Young people already have a variety of tools with which to express themselves, including AI – so why not energise them by using these tools to create an action plan for an active citizenship cause aimed at raising awareness around an issue they care about? The charity First Give (firstgive.co.uk ) can help themfind an issue to campaign on. If they want to be involved in climate education – and if you need some inspiration yourself – check out the Teaching Sustainable Futures modules from the UCL Centre for Climate Change and Sustainability Education, or learn from the environmental projects supported by Students for Organising Sustainability (sos-uk.org ). Students might be particularly interested in peace education, for which I’d recommend the free resources produced by the Peace Education Network (peace-education.org.uk ). Perhaps your students want to get involved in politics, or are interested in disaster preparation. Or virtual reality, race and racism, or economic education. If so, the free, practitioner-led Teaching Citizenship journal is worth a read. Or you could dip into the resources produced by Young Citizens (youngcitizens.org ), or Democracy Classroom (democracyclassroom.com) . Once you’ve identified what causes they care about, encourage them to draft letters to their local elected representatives, or invite local community members into the school for a collaborative co-learning experience utilising some of the citizenship pedagogies I’ve presented here. Make their citizenship experiences meaningful, long-lasting and achievable. How can we remain hopeful and committed to improving the situation when things appear to be so bleak? I don’t think we, as teachers, have any other option. It would be pretty unhelpful in our line of work if we were to simply give up. I therefore hope that this article refreshes and reminds you of the rich toolkit of possibilities available to us when teaching citizenship lessons. So when the next child asks, “W hat’s the point? ” – you can tell them. ABOUT THE AUTHOR Hans Svennevig is subject leader of the Citizenship PGCE at IOE, UCL’s Faculty of Education and Society WHATWE DO We teach students about the ongoing conflict between Israel and Palestine through the lens of human rights.We also teach them the knowledge needed to manage interactions with law enforcement, and how to critically analyse the media. We’ve additionally incorporated teaching around grassroots campaigning activity – such as the efforts to save a local skatepark. Then, through their own active citizenship projects, students soon discover how they can become a part of their local community, and the meaningful changes they can make. Our students have considered engaging with a range of issues, including campaigning for a more affordable uniform, and returning to non- disposable, sustainable cutlery following COVID. Local area issues have included the gentrification of London’s Elephant and Castle, and the lack of sports facilities accessible to young people in our borough. Other students have worked to raise awareness of more global issues, such as the plight of Angolan TikToker, Ana da Silva Miguel (also known as Neth Nahara). – Alison Jewitt Head of Citizenship at London Nautical, A City of London Academy 63 teachwire.net/secondary C I T I Z E N S H I P