ABSTRACT
In Chapter 5, Liam Gearon, Marilyn Holness and Dan Mace provide some initial considerations of how to approach citizenship by mapping some key complexities of the subject: law, the legal system, government; business and the world of finance; and globalisation – human rights, development education and education for sustainable development. The aim here is to unpack some of the key themes in national curriculum citizenship and provide a reflective way of approaching them in the classroom before the fine detail of curriculum planning. The chapter was written by three individuals with very different backgrounds and to this extent reflects the interests of the authors – Marilyn Holness has a background in business and finance and has several years experience as course leader for Business Studies at the University of Surrey Roehampton; Dan Mace is a corporate lawyer with 30 years of city practice and extensive experience of work with the Citizenship Foundation, and Dr Liam Gearon is Director of the Centre for Research in Human Rights at the University of Surrey Roehampton. The national curriculum citizenship at key stages 3 and 4 – the statutory component – contains a wide range of topics and subject areas that pupils are expected to know, understand and experience. Trainee and experienced teachers might encounter situations where they are expected to teach aspects of a subject that are not directly related to their degree background. The idea behind the chapter is to make it comfortable for even non-specialists to begin to approach, say, the teaching of law, even if their degree background is not explicitly legal. This chapter is therefore confidence-building, addressing large themes in a way designed to engender not only a sense of accessibility but also enthusiasm for the subject’s potential. The same principles of accessibility and enthusiasm will hold for pupils. Chapters 9 and 12 deal more with the practicalities of classroom teaching and active participation in citizenship, but Chapter 6 directly develops themes specifically related to pupils and their learning.
