Whole-school development

In developing plans, project schools were given a free choice in deciding where their initial focus would be. However, no matter where the starting point, the commitment has been that school action plans over time would address the application of a global dimension in and through:

	the Citizenship curriculum;
	student participation in the school;
	whole-school policy and ethos development.

Interest in the Developing Citizenship project - and hence starting points - varied from school to school: from individual teacher interest in human rights, development issues or 'the global dimension'; to senior management team concern that the school needed to 'make more' of its relations with the world; to concerns expressed about Citizenship education in Ofsted reports; to the project being seen as 'worthwhile'.

Support for the school in planning and implementation was provided by local DEC staff, and an LEA or HSP adviser. This 'outside support' amounted to on average three days per term for each school. Some of this involved workshops and planning meetings with representatives from all schools in a particular local authority. Over a period of three school years, each project school has also had access to approximately £800 per year to spend on resources or external support in implementing their action plan.

In taking part, schools have implicitly or explicitly dealt with a range of issues to do with:

	the aims of education and the purpose of the school;
	what young people should gain from education (in experiences, understanding, values, skills);
	teaching and learning approaches;
	school planning, school ethos, and learning from doing;
	the role of external support agencies (such as DECs, Healthy Schools Partnership or LEAs);
	school leadership and management;
	staff commitment and professional development.

This website gives some ideas that have been developed to address these issues. The examples don't do full justice to the complete range of work developed by the project schools, but we hope they give ideas for you to use, adapt and build on in providing students with experiences of citizenship in a changing, globalised, local society. The publication, due out in spring 2006, will share and build on these and other examples of project experiences.

More: School audit