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City & Islington College
Post-16 Citizenship activity at City and Islington College
In all of our citizenship activity we place strong emphasis on student initiative and involvement. None of our projects are classroom-based and students’ involvement is in all cases purely voluntary and additional to their academic timetable. We are fortunate in having a full-time youth worker who can support and facilitate projects flexibly without being tied to a rigid teaching timetable. We believe this approach is the right one for our institution and is a major reason for the flexibility and variety of projects that have emerged and the students’ strong sense of ownership. Projects this year have included:
- Political Vibes 2: peer-led music project; CD of 6 tracks on political themes, staff-student participation in LSN national programme, short-listed in national competition, live performance.
- International Women’s Day: students worked with youth worker to devise programme for college event and contributed some items (talk on homeless women, music performances)
- Question Time: students worked with teacher in enrichment time to plan and stage a question time; finalists in BBC competition
- Islamic Awareness Week: students joined working group to plan programme of talks and performances
- Black History Month: two students devised and staged an evening fashion show exploring African-Caribbean identity and cross-cultural influences
- Active Citizenship Trial; students were supported in entering for the trial of this assessment.
Citizenship coordinator's top tips for setting up post-16 citizenship activity:
- Allow the students to take the lead - the stronger their involvement, the more they will achieve
- Use creative approaches: music, dance, film, fashion etc are an appealing way into citizenship issues for young people
- Allow sufficient staff time to support student projects
- Celebrate students' achievements: photographic displays, performances, stories in school/college newsletter will spread the citizenship message and build students' self-esteem
- Work creatively with the demands of external assessment: don't allow it to limit your thinking
How this organisation could help you:
We are happy to respond to questions about our work from colleagues working in other organisations and to host visits by colleages and student groups.
Contact information
Name of citizenship coordinator: Karen Cole
Citizenship coordinator’s telephone:
020 7520 0629
Citizenship coordinator’s email:
karen.cole@candi.ac.uk
Organisation website: www.candi.ac.uk
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