A new Teaching Resource for Modern Foreigh Languages.

The languages most frequently taught in schools now are French, Spanish and German. We do not learn and teach languages simply so that pupils are able to converse when they go to the country: language learning is far more than that. It is through learning a foreign language that we grow in our ability to understand our own language and culture, and for many pupils it is the first, and possibly only, opportunity to explore the world through the eyes and ears of another. It is also a time when pupils recognise that they might even be that "other". The very fact of approaching another language and culture shows that we recognise the diversity in the world - and in our own community - and are entering into that diversity. Pupils learn to develop a degree of tolerance of and interest in those around them. Learning a language is being a citizen both of the country of origin and of the new country, as pupils get to grips with the traditions, religious celebrations, school and work life (amongst other topics) in other countries. Pupils are actively using and developing those skills which are so important for active citizenship.

An excellent set of thinking skills posters designed by a secondary teacher to be used by pupils to help extend their citizenship skills. The posters come with ideas for use, including lesson plans, schemes of work and examples of pupil work.

A series of thinking skills posters (pdf doc.) along with a rationale and ideas for their use in the classroom, (word doc)

A selection of key texts recommended for teaching a Citizenship Education PGCE course. Suggestions for which books should be on the list and the comments have come from various Citizenship PGCE tutors.

21 pieces of work are required. Each piece will be of direct and immediate value for a range of audiences (trainee teachers, experienced teachers and others). All pieces of work may be used in programmes of initial teacher education, continuous professional development and directly with school students.

Individuals who wish to express interest in writing one or more of these resources should be made via Roma Woodward (roma.woodward.ac.uk) as soon as possible and no later than the end of September 2007.

For full detail see attached document

This article indicates some of the most significant papers on the Citized site (www.citized.info) supporting secondary colleagues on the new Certificate course established by DfES. It should be noted that these documents were not written with a CPD cohort of teachers in mind and therefore some of the documents, whilst useful, have only partial relevance. I have attempted to include the most directly relevant but ultimately this comes down to judgement. Practising teachers will find a huge amount of valuable material on this site. Schemes of work produced by PGCE Citizenship beginning teachers have not been included though these will also be of interest to many colleagues.

Don Rowe

This article will begin by examining and dismissing the disparaging remarks made about Citizenship by some prominent Conservatives. It will acknowledge the descriptive accuracy of these comments with regard to bad Citizenship practice. The article will go on to outline what constitutes a consensual and normatively desirable definition of Citizenship education. It will assert that good Citizenship practice is both consistent with and indeed the embodiment of three predominant strands of current Conservative ideology: Libertarianism, Civic Conservatism and New Localism. It will conclude that it is intellectually consistent and politically desirable for a Conservative Party dominated by these strands of thought to embrace Citizenship education.

Introduction : This paper describes one approach adopted on a history with citizenship secondary PGCE course to address the requirements of the citizenship programme of study for key stages 3 and 4 in relation to the skills of participation and responsible action. As has already been discussed at length through Citized meetings and correspondence, ITT providers currently find themselves in the unique position of being responsible for training, and verifying the standard of training, in an area that scarcely exists in many schools. At the end of the first year of statutory citizenship education, it is evident that the curriculum requirements are often poorly understood, let alone implemented, with some schools continuing to "treat the strands in isolation, believing that … participation in other contexts can be counted as citizenship: such as… participation in team games" (Ofsted, 2003: 10). In the first year of a new programme at APU, we have experienced the same variability in awareness and action as Ofsted found. It is evident that some partner schools are still some considerable distance from having full programmes in place that transform their pupils' entitlement into a practical reality.

The paper is divided into three sections. The first section provides the context and includes a brief account of the background to the course, the nature of the partnership that supports it and the problem identified in relation to active citizenship. The second section outlines the actions planned to tackle the problem and ensure trainees had some worthwhile training in planning and implementing active citizenship projects. The third section considers the evidence generated by the trainees and partner schools and assesses the extent to which the approach adopted was successful.