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At Global Action Plan, we believe the systems shaping our world change for the better when the people most affected have the power, voice and tools to shape that change. That’s why we use participatory, co-created approaches to support educators and communities to lead the shift toward a fairer, more sustainable future - and why our work on citizenship education is grounded in the experiences and expertise of teachers themselves.
With citizenship education highlighted as a key element of the National Curriculum in the recent Curriculum and Assessment Review, the question of how to implement active citizenship in schools is likely to become a hot topic over the coming months, particularly in primary education where it is not currently mandatory.
Dr Ali Body and Dr Emily Lau, whose research on active citizenship was referenced in the Curriculum and Assessment Review, are leading the production of a new book focused on practical application of citizenship education in schools alongside Global Action Plan. The book and its associated resources are rooted in co-production with teachers, highlighting stories and experiences from educators on the front lines of citizenship education to create an accessible and useful guide - research is excellent, but teachers are the experts when it comes to the actual practicalities. So, we got them in a room together.
Supported by Pears Foundation, we facilitated a writing retreat with 8 primary school teachers at the forefront of active citizenship in education. The focus of the retreat was enabling collaboration between the teachers and academics to decide how to turn theory and research into an easily digestible, practice-focused book which primary school teachers can use to embed active citizenship at the heart of their lessons, schools and wider communities.
In order to facilitate this, we planned around teacher availability, organising the retreat for October half term (for at least some of the country) and ensuring that we covered any travel expenses. This allowed teachers to attend from across England, from the south coast to Liverpool.
During the three-day retreat, we squeezed in plenty of activities, including group discussions laying out the proposed content of each of the chapters, detailed planning of what kinds of case studies and other useful information could be included, and plenty of writing time to make sure we captured the teachers’ experiences in their own words. We were also joined by filmmakers Northern Heart, who captured footage of the event and conducted video interviews with teachers to produce supporting resources. Alongside the work, we had time for recharging and reflecting, which included some beautiful autumnal walks in the Buckinghamshire countryside and an excursion to the Roald Dahl Museum.
It was an incredibly energising few days getting practitioners in a room together and talking about theory, research and practical work. The discussion was wide ranging, and we made several changes to the overall structure of the book just as a starting point. We’re looking forward to writing everything up in the coming months, centring the teachers’ own words at the heart of the book to act as a leading light for any educators who want to embed active citizenship but might not know where to start.
One teacher commented: "I am buzzing. It’s rare that we as teachers are asked what would actually work in a classroom - usually things just get handed to us. Helping to shape this and knowing our experiences will help other schools get started, is just brilliant."
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