Is GCSE Citizenship going out of fashion????

[ag54]

My daughter chose GCSE Citizenship as part of her Year 9 options and has now been informed by her school that after studying the subject for a year it is now to be withdrawn and replaced by Religious Studies!!!! I emailed the school to find out what was happening and was told that a letter explaining the situation would be with me shortly!!!! Can Acadamies just change their minds about the National Curriculum at a drop of a hat and just as school is closing for the summer holidays?? How cowardly. How can a child catch up on a year's study in 6 weeks, with a view to achieving a grade at GCSE in next year's exams? I am extremely angry.

Was it ever in fashion?!

Practical response: get the relevant revision guide for RS GCSE (make sure its the right exam board) and help her learn as much of it as possible.

The school are highly unlikely to go back on their decision. But...can you request reassurance that extra RS lessons will be provided? It does seem very unfair

My most fervent concern is the cowardly, gutless and inept way that the school/academy chose not to inform the parents of the change before closing for summer. Furthermore, the school has suffered from 4 changes of headmaster since my child started school in Year 7, the strikes that limited her learning ability in Year 8 and the lack of teaching staff in Year 9. Now at the end of Year 10 she is now told that one of the subjects she chose has now been withdrawn. What is going to be next???

Surely this could only apply for the year 9s? A school couldn't switch subjects at the end of year 10 and teach it in effectively two terms?

Perhaps it varies by board bu y son just did the educas RS and it was massively content-heavy.

Surely in practice this would really mean dropping a gcse?

They have dropped the subject at the END of Year 10? That’s appalling. If citizenship is well taught, it’s a great

What reason are they giving? Perhaps they lost their only teacher? It is not usual to do this. Most unfair. We had a situation with a group doing a different, slightly unusually lost their teacher at the end of Yr 10. We paid for a qualified tutor to come and teach the lessons to the end of Yr 11 - he was awesome - no one new was able to pick up the subject at Yr 10 but we certainly saw the ones half way through to the end.

Sorry about the missing words. Unusual subject that should be. And citizenship can be brilliant if taught well.

Unfortunately yes they can.

Also sometimes they have to. Has a member of staff left and they can't find a replacement?

But they should have, as you say, informed boh students and parents and discussed what they could do.

I doubt the strikes had an impact on her learning. It was a couple of days tops (and before anyone asks no, I don't think schools should be so harsh about days off either).
I am surprised that Citizenship was offered as an option though. In most schools that have done it it's compulsory. It's (unfortunately) not very well thought of.
However, that doesn't change that fact that this has been handled badly. There will still be staff in and the Head will still be checking email etc. I'd email asking for clarification. Whilst the why may be bothering you, I'd focus on what support will they offer to make sure the students aren't disadvantaged. Have you been informed what specification and what papers they will be doing? These things matter a lot in RS GCSE.

Some of the RS GCSE courses are half gcses rather than full. It is possible they are switching to this if expected to do it one year.

Citizenship is one of those less well regarded gcses like general studies a level whereas RS is considered to be a "proper" humanity subject.

Could be that the citizenship teacher has left and they can’t replace them? Still very unfair - but perhaps they have no solution.

Have you had the letter yet? Many schools do GCSE short course RS which is half a gcse and taught in a year so perhaps that’s what they are proposing?

It sounds like someone has left and the school has no desire to employ a citizenship teacher again because almost nobody does citizenship GCSE.

Religious Studies is more like world religions, philosophy and ethics so is probably the closest to citizenship.

I'm very surprised anywhere offers citizenship at GCSE. I thought it was on its way out, along with General Studies. Both were the sort of course that schools would enter anyone in for in order to bank some more easy grades.

Whether they could have communicated sooner will depend on the reason for the subject being dropped. A random change is probably poor communication. A staff member has announced they're starting maternity leave in October probably less so. A school probably getting external support (I'm guessing from high head turnover, staffing inconsistencies plus citizenship at GCSE this is a struggling school) may well have been told they have to make these changes because the quality of education isn't good enough.

I don't know what is covered in Citizenship, but could there be overlap with RS?

For RS, DD is doing Christianity & Islam (50%) then the other 50% on 4 thematic studies, Family & Relationships, Peace&Conflict, and 2 others I can't remember the name of.

I was in the cohort of the second year (at our school at least) to do citizenship GCSE. It probably could be useful but honestly, it felt like patronising bullshit, we christened it "Shitizenship" and nobody took it very seriously.

My child did Citizenship as a compulsory subject - I assumed it was a way for the school to get around not making them do RS to GCSE.

I’ve never heard of it, what is it?

I did my PGCE in citizenship, only to see it made non-mandatory as I qualified. Now it's not compulsory, there are very few jobs.

Thankfully GCSE Citizenship has gone the same way as World Studies. Citizenship should be an integral part of all school studies, WTF does a GCSE in it do for anyone?