Can I have your lesson plans.... please?

[JaySeeBee]

I’m trying to get hold of some lesson plans or detailed curriculum outlines for the content that children are taught during Citizenship Education lessons at different schools. What would be the best way to go about doing this - email the school directly, download ready-made plans from a website? Would teachers / schools actually be willing to share this info with me or are lesson plans a closely guarded secret?

I appreciate that it’s half-term and also that teachers have a never-ending list of things to do so any tips on how to get hold of these would be very helpful.

Why do you want them?

Oops, that info might be helpful. I'm doing a research project on Citizenship Education and I'm trying to understand how (or if) this topic is actually taught in schools. I've had a look at the national curriculum guidelines and talked to a couple of teacher friends about it but was hoping to gather more info from teachers at different schools.

Some schools have their curriculum plans online so you could look there. There are lesson plans on TES (though that would online give you one off lessons, not an idea of how they fit together)

Thanks for that, I'll have a look through a few school websites and see what I can find. With CE, do teachers generally use resources available via TES, Primary Resources etc. rather than creating them from scratch?

Sorry, but I would not dream of emailing over my lesson plans so that a complete stranger can critique them

Some schools may use ready made schemes with resources. Have you looked at the PSHE Association as a starting point? There are also Facebook groups that might be helpful. What is your research for? What will you do with it? Will schools be named (and potentially shamed)?

Fair enough.

Thanks. Yes, I've been looking through several school websites as @OutDamnedSpot suggested which has been really helpful. As you say, there are a few that are using schemes that seem to have resources available which include lesson plans. I didn't realise there were specific Facebook groups, I'll look into that - thanks.

My research is (very broadly) looking at the various ways children learn about citizenship and whether the CE curriculum in its current format is fit for purpose. I know this is mandatory from secondary school on but I'm interested in how much children are taught about their place in society while they're at primary school and how this specific module is taught. From my own experience, my children haven't been taught very much about how the political system works. They're young but they have valid questions about what's going on - especially now that we seem to be going through PMs at a rapid rate.

I'm definitely on the side of the teachers who are teaching CE and the schools who are trying to encourage an active interest in citizenship! I absolutely won't be naming or shaming anyone I speak to or any of the schools they're connected with. This part of my research is more to familiarise myself with the way things are taught and the issues that teachers experience along the way. I don't want to make any assumptions about this so I'm trying to get reliable information from teachers who've taught CE.

Our PSHE objectives come from the LA I believe, as they did when I taught in a different county. I'm not sure many of them at LKS2 and below could really be classed as Citizenship, although those themes are often covered in assemblies.

Thank you, that's interesting. So schools don't have much latitude around developing the actual content, the focus is more around developing the activities that help support this learning e.g. through school assemblies.

Well, yes, but that's the same for any subject. We teach to objectives - for everything bar PSHE and RE these are from the National Curriculum 2014. There is literally no time to teach other things because we might think they are worthy. We still have to make up lessons from scratch though unless you can buy in a scheme or find a decent resource online, and most objectives are broad enough this gives you quite a lot of leeway in how you teach something.

I see, so the Citizenship programmes of study for key stages 1 and 2 are incorporated into other subjects e.g. PSHE and RE rather than followed the way other core subjects are?

You would be unlikely to find a lesson called ‘citizenship’ in secondary schools. It is part of the PSHE curriculum.

Yes, that's what I've gathered so far - I assume this is even less likely in primary schools.

In your opinion, does CE feel like more of an add-on or do you think it's a valuable part of the curriculum in its own right?

Have you looked at ACT (Association for Citizenship Teaching) as well as the PSHE association?
The issue at the moment is that PSHE is so full because of statutory Relationship education in primary school and relationship and sex education in Secondary schools that in some places citizenship education is not given the time and emphasis needed.
We do have citizenship units in our PSHE scheme of work and lots is also delivered through assemblies etc but I’d like to have more time to increase the importance.

My mistake, didn't realise the objectives are separate to PSHE as I don't teach it (part time). They are all non-statutory though, so will never be given the same importance as objectives for say maths or English. To be honest, yes it is very much an add on. Primaries will not have a weekly timetabled Citizenship lesson in addition to PSHE - there just isn't time.

I remember when there were bursaries for Citizenship trainees… I wonder what happened to them all.

The one we had spent the budget for the year on photocopying and never went into teaching.

So there were (are) bursaries available to just about anyone to 'train' to teach citizenship in schools, even if they weren't a teacher?

I have a controversial question - how do you feel about being expected to teach children about democracy and rule of law when schools are inherently nondemocratic institutions themselves?

I spent a year helping out with a reception class before covid and it was a real eye opener in terms of how little time there was for so many things.

I've attended a lot of talks where new and 'innovative' ideas that have been dreamed up in fancy studios rely completely on the expectation that teachers will just deliver these schemes alongside other lessons or in the 'gaps' between lessons. I don't think these people have ever spoken to a teacher before.

No, the bursaries were to train to teach. Like you’d train to be an English teacher or a science teacher, you could train to be a Citizenship teacher.

Less conflicted than I feel teaching about democracy, rule of law and equality when our current government don't exemplify any of the values themselves.

How would you imagine "democratic" school to be run? And how would it run in such a way that protected the rights of the teachers (including e.g. health and safety at work) and the rights of all students to receive a suitable education?

I teach PSHE/citizenship as part of a tutor time program. The lesson plans are provided for us, so I wouldn't share them with someone else without permission. There's not much freedom in terms of what is taught, but that's the same as any subject.

It's pretty clear you have an agenda here, so why not say what you're getting at, and we can have an open/honest conversation about it?

I agree with you about those in power absolutely not exemplifying the British Values that form the fundamental basis of the CE curriculum in its current form.

I don't think a school can be a democratic place, the power structures in place appear to be more in line with an authoritarian regime than a democratic system (again, just my opinion based on my own experience).

Thanks for clarifying your position on the lesson plans. When I posted this request I wanted to gauge whether this information might be something teachers would be happy to share but fully appreciate where you're all coming from and why you're unwilling / unable to share this sort of information. The publicly available resources are a really useful starting point so I'll go from there.

I really don't have a nefarious agenda, I'm genuinely interested in what teachers think about all this. I'm a PhD student and my research is very much based on an inclusive approach to finding out how people experience CE. I spend a bit of time on MN away from my research so I know the vibe is on here is a mixed bag 🙃 I knew that posting my request on here would give me a range of different responses so thought - why not?

Thank you all for responding to me - your feedback really is so useful.

ooooh I see - I never knew that! I thought qualified teachers were given the opportunity to train as CE teachers. Thanks, I'll look into how that's meant to work.

Thanks! I had a look at the ACT website and there were a few free resources which were really useful.

PSHE seems to be a bit of a catch-all for disparate topics.