Citizenship champions
Access keys Skip navigation
Stoke-on-Trent College
Post-16 Citizenship activity at Stoke-on-Trent College
Stoke-on-Trent College's Post-16 Citizenship Programme has developed enormously since it was introduced in 2004. As well as already-established strategies and projects blossoming, a range of new and exciting youth-led projects have been set up and have rocketed in the past year.
The foundations of Post-16 Citizenship at our College are laid firmly in our cross-college citizenship Tutorial Programme. Over 120 tutor groups of full-time 16-19 year old students have a minimum entitlement of 6 hours of classroom-based citizenship sessions per academic year. This is achieved through regular tutorial sessions, themed weeks/months, extended projects and dedicated 'Citizenship days'. Personal Tutors are constantly monitored by the Citizenship Co-ordinator to ensure that these sessions have been completed, and ongoing staff development and other support is provided along with up to date resources. The main guide used by Personal Tutors is our 'Post-16 Citizenship Tutorial Handbook' which was produced in house last Summer.
These facilitated citizenship sessions involve over 2,000 learners each year, who have identified and engaged in local, national and international issues. We also have a diverse active citizenship programme to complement these tutorial sessions, which students engage in voluntarily.
Active Citizenship projects include:
- Active and effective Student Council
- ESOL Students weekly Citizenship Programme and Drama Project
- Burslem Park Renovation Project and Media Display
- The Speak UP Squad (Access to Training Entry Level Student Forum)
- Challenge South Africa - including a 10 day trip to Cape Town
- Connexions Card /Citizenship Reward Pilot Scheme
- Contributions can be made to the termly Citizenship Newsletter 'Cityzens'
All of these projects are deservedly celebrated in our annual one day citizenship Conference, the most recent of which was held in April and was aptly entitled 'The Fully Charged Citizenship Conference 2006'.
This event also incorporates local Secondary School Councils in a bid to strengthen the link between pre and post-16 citizenship in Stoke-on-Trent.
Citizenship coordinator's top tips for setting up post-16 citizenship activity:
- A good basis for a Post-16 citizenship programme is to introduce it into an already existing Tutorial system gradually. Don't expect too much too soon - a preliminary target could be for all Tutors to deliver a one hour citizenship session during the next term - but bear in mind the next few points:
- Don't expect Tutors to have the time (or knowledge) to research and prepare citizenship sessions for themselves - they won't! You at least need to point them in the right direction, or even better - give them a range of materials and resources, from which they can pick the sessions that they feel their students would enjoy/be most interested in. We produce a 'Post-16 citizenship Tutorial Handbook' which contains over 50 session plans and links to other resources.
- When planning active citizenship projects, let these be as youth-led as much as possible. This not only ensures that the issue is relevant and of interest to the students, but also fits in with the whole essence of Post-16 citizenship - young people taking responsibility for a cause themselves.
- Staff Development is essential within any organisation wishing to adopt a Post-16 citizenship programme. We use time set aside for non-teaching each week for citizenship Staff Development. Each session is about an hour long and is used to explain what Post-16 citizenship covers, we give out resources and materials and answer any questions from Tutors. With regards to the materials given out for sessions, we try to keep the resources as up to date as possible (current affairs and topical debates) and also try to find sessions that appeal to individual subject areas (eg Business, Hairdressing). This is in response to feedback from tutors who said they'd feel more comfortable delivering citizenship sessions on topics that they know something about. For example, Hairdressing Lecturers have embraced sessions on Animal Testing, but need more guidance and possibly assistance in delivering a session on Pensions).
- Publicise your citizenship activity in as many different formats as you can to ensure that a wide target audience is reached and more people across your organisation feel informed and involved. We use the intranet, display and notice boards, staff magazines and a termly citizenship Newsletter (Cityzens) which is distributed to all Personal Tutors and other staff with an interest in citizenship.
How this organisation could help you:
Stoke-on-Trent College is eager to link up with other Post-16 organisations who are new to citizenship. We are in fact in the process of working in collaboration with the 157 Group of Colleges to establish a national network of organisations who could lend support to each other in this exact manner. Plans are yet to be confirmed, however we imagine the support network to consist of regional events, mutual invitations to visit and observe each others' programmes, resource sharing (which already goes on between the post-16 citizenship Champion organisations) and in the future, collaborative conferences which celebrate and publicise our young people's great work.
Contact information
Name of citizenship coordinator: Emma Moseley
Citizenship coordinator’s telephone:
07786 113907
Citizenship coordinator’s email: Emma.Moseley@stokecoll.ac.uk
Organisation website: www.stokecoll.ac.uk
Back to top