Over the last 12 months I have seen multiple calls for lessons on political literacy to be included to the national curriculum, but I would like to point out that political literacy has been a statutory part of the national curriculum since 2002, and I am one of those teachers whose PGCE was Citizenship education and yet does not teach it as a discrete subject.
The purpose of citizenship education is to equip the next generation of voters with the knowledge and drive to create change in the world around them. Not only are they taught the factual knowledge that will help them to understand the way that the world around them works, but also provides them with the skills they will need to effect change, whether this be at a local, national or international level.
The expectation at its introduction was that Citizenship Education should be recording achievement along with all other foundation subjects in the national curriculum; for this to be achieved in an ideal world citizenship education would need to receive a minimum of 3% of the timetable time. However in reality Citizenship is often mapped through other subjects and taught alongside PSHE within a combined programme. As often happens when combining two very different and separate subjects neither can be taught in as much depth as the should be, and in the case of PSHE and Citizenship it is often non-specialists who teach it.
PSHE is already over saturated with its own programme of study, and having more added to it all the time. In the 12 years I have been teaching I have seen the addition of E-safety and Digital Citizenship, more focus on mental health and well-being, increased discussion of body image and impact of the media on self esteem, as well as the introduction of anti-radicalisation education, British Values and SMSC (the last two I know are whole school agendas) plus much more.
With the continual additions being made, citizenship education gets sidelined more and more as the subject content can be rather complex, especially when looking at Britain in the wider world, including the European Union. it is reaching the point where lip-service is paid to the subject rather than the in-depth and detailed teaching that is needed.
In addition to this the amount of time on the timetable for both PSHE and Citizenship often does not add up to the 3% that Citizenship should be receiving on its own. I have heard of schools that teach both subjects as tutor time activities, purely through drop down days, or with either 1 lesson a week or every 2 weeks. Even in a best case scenario of 1 hour a week, there is not enough time to adequately teach both subjects.
If the last 12 months of political upheaval have taught us anything, it has taught us that there needs to be a decoupling of PSHE and Citizenship so that both can do the job they are designed to do.
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