Citizenship

Citizenship

Citizenship Studies is concerned with the kind of society we live in and want to influence and develop. It covers, too, the role of the public and private organisations in the process. School courses help prepare students to become active citizens. The best of them promote students’ personal and social development, and make them more self-confident and responsible, in the classroom and beyond.

All external examination courses emphasise developing awareness of the role of citizens in a variety of contexts.

Just about any educational visit will contribute to the students’ exploration of new experiences and new ideas about being a ‘citizen’, but venues and activities that bring students into contact with other communities, other social contexts and other attitudes will be particularly exciting. Many museums and venues specialise in giving hands-on experiences of what some aspects of life in earlier centuries was actually like. These tend to be attractive to primary school groups.

Secondary groups often visit civic centres and attend local council meetings. Both primary and secondary groups will be welcome at churches, chapels, synagogues, mosques and temple, some of which offer programmes of talks and exhibitions. In cities this is relatively easy to arrange but even in rural communities priests and lay church people are prepared to help schools.

The Citizenship Foundation would be an excellent starting point. It claims to help 80% of secondary schools to nurture citizenship, and sets out to inspire young people to contribute to society. The Association for Citizenship Teaching also provides advice and teaching resources, while the National Centre for Citizenship and the Law delivers law and justice education at national heritage sites.

 

Main organisations:

Citizenship Foundation 

Association for Citizenship Teaching

National Centre for Citizenship and the Law

PSHE Association

Democratic Life

Hansard Society

Inclusion: NASEN

 

Thought of visiting?

The Victoria and Albert Museum of Childhood, Bethnal Green

National Trust Museum of Childhood, Sudbury, Derbyshire

Museum of Childhood, Edinburgh

The London Museum

The National Archives, Kew

Houses of Parliament

Welsh Assembly

Scottish Parliament

Northern Ireland Assembly

 

Although every visit can result in learning outcomes for Citizenship, for a complete list of venues and providers who deliver specialist courses and activities for this subject see below:

Wellington Arch

Venue Type: 
Historic Buildings & Monuments
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Set in the heart of royal London at Hyde Park Corner, Wellington Arch was built in 1825-7 as part of a campaign to improve the royal parks. Intended as a victory arch proclaiming Wellington's defeat of Napoleon, it is crowned by the largest bronze sculpture in Europe, depicting the Angel of Peace descending on the ‘Quadriga’ – or four-horsed chariot – of War.

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Jane Austen’s House and Museum

Venue Type: 
Historic Buildings & Monuments
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Jane Austen is one of the most popular and important novelists that England has ever produced. The house at Chawton is where she spent the last eight years of her life. It is of international importance as the place where she did the majority of her mature writing, but at the same time retains the charm of a village home. A 17th century house, it tells the story of Jane Austen and her family.

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Eastbury Manor House

Striking Elizabethan merchant's house and gardens
Venue Type: 
Historic Buildings & Monuments
Overall Rating: 
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Important brick-built Tudor gentry house, completed about 1573, little altered since. Early 17th-century wall-paintings showing fishing scenes and a cityscape grace the former Great Chamber.

Evocative exposed timbers in attic, fine original spiral oak staircase in turret, soaring chimneys, cobbled courtyard, peaceful walled garden with bee boles.

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Osborne House

Venue Type: 
Historic Buildings & Monuments
Overall Rating: 
0

"It is impossible to imagine a prettier spot" - such were the words of Queen Victoria after her first visit to Osborne House on the Isle of Wight.

No trip to the island would be complete without a visit to this royal seaside palace where Queen Victoria lived with her beloved Prince Albert and their nine children.

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Temple Manor

Venue Type: 
Historic Buildings & Monuments
Overall Rating: 
0

Although once surrounded by farmland, this ancient manor house now stands amidst an industrial estate. Nevertheless, a leafy garden provides a fitting setting for the property, and visitors willing to brave the built-up surroundings are more than rewarded with a fine medieval building - which also includes fascinating traces of wall paintings in the first floor hall.

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Chislehurst Caves

Miles of mystery and history beneath your feet
Venue Type: 
Factory Visits & Industry
Overall Rating: 
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Extending some 35km (22 miles), the man-made caves were constructed as an ancient lime and flint mine.

The caves at Chislehurst are a labyrinth of man made tunnels forming a maze covering over six hectares thirty metres below the woodlands above. They were dug for chalk used in lime burning and brick-making for the building of London, also for flints to fire the tinderboxes and flintlock guns of years ago.

First open to the public in the start of the 20th century as a showplace, the guides told the Victorian history of Druids, Romans and Saxons, smuggling and murder.

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Berry Pomeroy Castle

Venue Type: 
Castles
Overall Rating: 
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Tucked away in a deep wooded valley, Berry Pomeroy Castle is the perfect romantic ruin with a colourful history of intrigue.  

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Egglestone Abbey

Venue Type: 
Religious Buildings
Overall Rating: 
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The charming ruins of a small monastery of Premonstratensian 'white canons', picturesquely set above a bend in the River Tees near Barnard Castle.

Remains include much of the 13th century church and a range of living quarters, with traces of their ingenious toilet drainage system.

Egglestone is situated above the River Tees about a mile south-east of Barnard Castle (see p. 92). The abbey has a fairly unconventional plan, with its church on the south side of the cloister.

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Laing Art Gallery

Venue Type: 
Art Gallery
Overall Rating: 
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The Laing Art Gallery is home to an important collection of fine and decorative art. Our permanent collection and temporary exhibitions feature historic and contemporary art from internationally renowned artists.

18th and 19th Century Collection
The Laing's impressive permanent collection encourages visitors to return to the Gallery on a regular basis. Highlights include John Martin's breathtaking The Destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah and William Holman Hunt's poignant painting of Isabella and the Pot of Basil.

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Kedleston Hall

Spectacular 18th-century mansion with Adam interiors and parkland
Venue Type: 
Historic Buildings & Monuments
Overall Rating: 
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Take a trip back in time to the 1760s at this spectacular Neo-classical mansion framed by historic parkland.

Designed for lavish entertaining and displaying an extensive collection of paintings, sculpture and original furnishings, Kedleston is a stunning example of the work of architect Robert Adam.

The Curzon family have lived here since the 12th-century and continue to live at the Hall. Lord Curzon's Eastern Museum is a treasure trove of fascinating objects acquired on his travels in Asia and while Viceroy of India (1899 to 1905).

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