Bryden Joy

ACT Ambassador and Council member Bryden Joy spoke on a panel at the Council of Europe #EuropeanSpaceforCitizenshipEducation conference in Montenegro last week and highlighted the vital role of Citizenship education in the digital age. Read more: https://ow.ly/AA6v50XgLOm EduSkyUK

ACT Council Member, Bryden Joy was panellist today for a session at the Council of Europe’s 'Towards a European Space for Citizenship Education' conference, led by educators and students on how the initiative can address current priorities, expectations and challenges.

It's also a whole other subject to PSHE, but they're often taught together and conflated in terms of content, with many teachers not knowing the difference.

Academies don't have to teach the National Curriculum, so Citizenship often gets ignored - and even in maintained schools, too. There's also a GCSE, which goes into more detail about levels of government.

This is the content that many schools do not currently teach (in depth, or even at all!) because academies are exempt for delivering the NC, and because of the lack of accountability out upon them. So many people don't even know Citizenship exists, nor that there is a GCSE!

@nataliegreenpeer.bsky.social PSHE is vitally important, but some of the content you referred to in your speech actually sits within Citizenship, a National Curriculum subject for more than 20 years. Please draw attention to the work of @acitizenshipt.bsky.social and prevent further conflation.

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It's now 116 standards across KS3/4, up from 67 before.

I'm hoping that more schools will dedicate time to PSHE (and Citizenship), but we both know the difficulties with that, and how cross-curricular approaches can often turn out.

There's also a bill in the Lords, the Wellbeing and Schools Bill, which will make NC compulsory in all state schools, including academies, which would also mean provision would be better across the board.

Barely is probably an exaggeration, but I think it's fair to say that it's inconsistent in provision. Claiming it's being added because of votes at 16 is definitely wrong. Curriculum review will hopefully suggest updating the content, and say primary provision should also be compulsory.

He does - he attended the subject association conference in the summer, I had a chat with him there.

My reading of the article is that he is talking about forthcoming resources from the EC due to votes at 16, and the reporter has glossed over specific references, bar one minor mention.

I'm hopeful that the CAR will reinforce the position of Cz, which has been seemingly sidelined for the past 15 years.

I totally agree that few do GCSE, but a lot more should be doing core Cz and don't get the full NC provision. But the subject does exist, which the article skims over.

What proportion of teachers do you think recognise that Citizenship is part of the NC, as a subject wholly separate from PSHE? The data doesn't necessarily distinguish between quality of existing curriculum and awareness of what is currently being taught (or meant to be taught!)

For clarity, that's the National Curriculum for Citizenship.

The GCSE is optional, roughly 20k pupils take it per year. It used to be higher when short courses a thing, before the reforms in c.2015

Academies don't have to do it, maintained secondaries do have to do it - whether it's actually done or not is debatable, often it's a few tokenistic lessons which doesn't cover the expected depth, and is conflated as part of the Wider World section of PSHE.

Primary programme of study is optional.

It's because there's a whole subject called Citizenship which encompasses politics, the legal system, human rights, the media, the economy and more.

The two subjects are often conflated, but they're different. Citizenship has been on the National Curriculum for over 20 years.

I genuinely cannot understand how or why an existing NC subject would be given to Maths to teach - at most, the connections are related to proportional representation and the economy.

Citizenship exists already as a subject (distinct from PSHE), on the NC for more than 20 years. It also has a GCSE.

I'd support that - though with only two providers offering a PGCE in Citizenship, it'll be hard to get enough specialists to teach it all!

I'm hopeful that the curriculum review will lead to increased opportunities for teachers to enhance their Citizenship knowledge and pedagogy.

Financial and economic education is compulsory as part of Maths and Citizenship, though the National Curriculum is only compulsory for maintained schools.

Content within PSHE is non-statutory, and has somewhat been squeezed by the statutory RSHE element, which does not include finance.

It's actually part of the Citizenship National Curriculum (different to PSHE, despite them often being conflated and taught together), and there is a GCSE in Citizenship Studies.

Maintained schools are obligated to cover the NC & therefore should already be doing this; academies have more freedoms.

It's coming!

Australia has a similar concept; you could compare the lists.

You can also use case studies as stimuli and ask pupils to evaluate the extent to which BV are being upheld/adhered to, or discuss whether its contradictory for schools to be expected to promote BV despite one being individual liberty.

I encourage pupils to consider whether or not they're inherently British (i.e. have ownership over them) or ideals to work towards. Also interesting to highlight the original Prevent strategy which included free speech and equality of opportunity.

I think it's important to highlight where a view is personal rather than fact, and to make clear that pupils should decide themselves.

Politics isn't part of PSHE - it's Citizenship, which is part of the National Curriculum. The non-statutory programme of study may become statutory with the CAR.

I'd argue differently - it doesn't say you can't give an opinion, it says not to take advantage of vulnerability or incite lawbreaking.

You can absolutely discuss political issues, you just need to show impartiality over time. It's not BBC-style immediate equivalence, but varied views.

Citizenship is a National Curriculum subject, and all maintained schools are required to teach it - whether they do or not is another story. Academies don't have to teach it at the moment, but the Wellbeing and Schools Bill currently going through Parliament will change that, if passed.

Yeah, I started the TV show and didn't like it, but have tried again. I think the second book was the best, but they're all very clever.

Currently This Thing of Ours by Frederick Joseph. Just did We Were Warned by Chelsea Ichaso. Did all three A Good Girl's Guide to Murder on Audible, really enjoyed them. the Naturals by Jennifer Lynn Barnes was decent, too.

Have you tried Netgalley? I've been getting audiobooks to listen to whilst driving.

The second is a document you can print and annotate with ideas about existing compliance and ideas for future tweaks or additions.

bit.ly/4eWfY9x

Currently only for secondary, but hopefully I can sort primary at some point soon, too.