Leighton, R.

English

Canterbury Research and Theses Environment

Trainees, Mentors and Citizenship: Fair Conflict Resolution Begins Here.I started researching Citizenship Education while a school curriculum leader with responsibilities which included the introduction of a formal programme of Citizenship. I did some reading and contacted a few other schools, which led to the revelation (to me) that there was no clear structure to implementing the requirements of  the Crick Report (1998) and that those requirements were not particularly clear. I have left the philosophical and sociological discussion to one side for this paper “in the interests of space, in so far as space is interesting” (Sanderson, 2001: p10) having engaged with them elsewhere, as have many others.QCA has stated that “it is up to schools to choose how they organise their school curriculum to include the programmes of study for citizenship” (1999, p6) as its interpretation of The Final Report of the Advisory Group on Citizenship (1998) [The Crick Report]’s ‘essential and unanimous‘ recommendation that schools be allowed flexibility of approach. The emphasis from QCA and Crick was on an ‘output only’ model, one where aims and objectives are identified but strategies for their achievement are recommended rather than imposed. This quickly became a justification for reinterpreting the observation that citizenship could be delivered as a separate subject and through existing curriculum arrangements as offering alternative rather than complementary strategies – ‘and’ became ‘another way’ rather than ‘a supporting strategy’. Despite The Crick report stating that “citizenship needs a distinct profile in the revised curriculum” (P52) and, in the same paragraph, expressly limiting the teaching of citizenship through existing subjects to primary class teachers, there appears to be a prevalent belief that Citizenship lessons are not a statutory requirement. In the first stage of my research (Leighton 2002), four teacher perceptions of Citizenship as a school subject were identified:1.	“It’s what we all do anyway”;2.	“Another trendy gesture which adds to our workload without helping anyone”;3.	“Not before time”;4.	“As long as I don’t have to teach it”.I was not able to discern a pattern to these perceptions based, for example, on subject specialism or length of service, although teachers of humanities subjects and/or with pastoral responsibilities and interests tended to be more positive than their colleagues. More significant was the extent to which teachers had been involved in planning the introduction or delivery of the subject. According to Cleaver et al (2003) senior management have consulted with staff over the planned introduction of citizenship delivery in only 29% of schools. My data suggested that, even within that 29%, not everyone involved in delivery is involved in planning or other decisions. The sense of deskilling experienced by those ‘excluded’ from decision making has a negative effect on their subject delivery – both in Citizenship and in their main subject.There was something approaching a pattern between schools, however, reflecting (or dictating?) their approach to implementing the Report’s recommendations. There appear to be five possible approaches to the delivery of Citizenship:1.	As a discrete subject;2.	As part of PSHE;3.	Integrated into the existing curricular subjects;4.	Special focus events;5.	Ignoring statutory requirements.Some schools combine two or more of the first four of these while there are also various shades to 5. Some requirements may be overlooked by schools aiming to meet requirements, but others seem not to be attempting to meet their statutory obligations. For example, one local head teacher has stated, “I do not believe in Citizenship”; whether this refers to the subject, the ethos, and/or the philosophical concept was not made clear. The inclusion of Citizenship within PSHE seems a convenience for non-specialist staff who might well be struggling to deal with either subject, rather than a well-considered attempt at subject and curriculum development. That Citizenship is a foundation – and therefore mandatory –  subject, while for PSHE there is only non-statutory guidance, does not seem to have entered the consciousness of all those responsible for the delivery of Citizenship.More recently I have looked at the relationship between subject mentors and PGCE Citizenship trainees (Leighton 2004) and, within that paper, identified six attitudes to the subject amongst those who teach it.1. Commitment: For trainees, the decision to teach citizenship was unanimously a conscious career choice based on a commitment to the underlying principles and to the content of the citizenship curriculum.  It is not surprising that citizenship-qualified teachers had very similar reasons for teaching the subject to those offered by trainees. They were recently qualified and had made the same conscious choices. However, in the words of one NQT with a background in outreach youth work, there were signs of “becoming cynical about whether we can make any difference to anyone”.2. Conversion:  There are experienced teachers who feel that the discrete teaching of Citizenship is crucial to the benefit of young people. Some to the extent that they are more interested in how to teach Citizenship and enable their pupils to develop the appropriate skills than in some of the requirements of their own subjects. Others feel that they do not have the necessary skills and depth of knowledge to develop the subject and actively seek recruitment of teachers who have the appropriate training.3. Co-existence:  A significant number believe that there is a need for citizenship teaching. Not at the expense of their main subject but possibly complementary to their schools’ PSHE programmes, as well as preparing young people for life after school in ways which other subjects were not equipped to address. They tended to share what I have described above as a “Not before time” perspective.4. Colonisation:  Some teachers regard Citizenship as a way of ensuring the continuance of their own subject which they perceive as otherwise under threat. Amongst teachers in this category there is a belief that they can deliver ‘their version’ of citizenship, in line with Crick’s (1998) notion that what pupils experience in citizenship should be tailored to the requirements of their school and the local community​[1]​. This contains an assumption that such requirements are identifiable and identified; the limited evidence I gathered suggests that such identification is confined to the perceptions of those charged with delivering the subject and, in the case of ‘colonising’ teachers, this was heavily influenced by their desire to protect and develop their own, often PSHE-related, areas of responsibility. 5. Compliance: Significant amongst some who were teaching citizenship as a timetable filler, rather than from a position of expertise or commitment, was an air of resignation. Particularly younger and less experience teachers, their approach tended to be that the subject was there and they didn’t want to upset anyone who might be called upon to write a reference, so they might as well do what they could. That they were compliant rather than dedicated did not result in poorer teaching but in greater anxiety. Presumably those more senior teachers who did not want to teach the subject were in a position to ensure they were not called upon to do so.6. Conflict: While not as common as I expected, some teachers are actively opposed to the teaching of citizenship – either by themselves or by anyone else. Some of this derived from insecurity with the subject material and ways of developing it: citizenship tends not to be a didactically delivered subject as, at its best, it encourages active participation and the airing and sharing of views. These teachers were no less anxious than their compliant colleagues, but their anxieties centred upon spending time away from what “I should be doing” or “that (head of subject) will think I’m a crap teacher”. One such teacher adopted strategies including being disruptive when observing lessons, making comments about competence and relevance, and removing resources prepared by and relied upon by trainees. Significantly, those in the ‘conflict’ category tended to be teachers a) with no management position, b) who taught a core subject, or c) who taught a subject very different to citizenship. While the other categories include people in any one of these positions, conflict only appeared to arise for those in a) and b) or c).As shown below, Citizenship PGCE timetables from one cohort’s practices show that trainees spent less than 50% of their collective time in discrete Citizenship or ‘Citizenship-lite’ teaching. Most trainees taught three subjects on one practice, some four, and one taught seven. When timetables are negotiated with subject or professional mentors​[2]​ there are many demands to consider, not least the attitudes of other teachers towards the subject; one head of sociology, for example, refused to allow any lessons to be taken by a trainee with an upper second class sociology degree but did not explain this decision. Another consideration is that trainees often rely on mentors for references and certainly for interim and formative reports; there is a fear, justified or not, that non-compliance might result in negative or critical evaluations. When they are ‘allowed’ to teach other subjects, some trainees have been criticised for lack of subject expertise – not in Citizenship but in their second (seventh?) subject without necessarily being offered support to develop this expertise as they are not ‘subject X’ trainees and therefore not the critic’s responsibility. This could be described as a form of ‘workplace bullying’.    Other includes: art, general studies, geography, ICT, leisure &    tourism, maths, philosophy, politics, psychology and sociology.The Crick Report identifies (Pp52-54) aspects of the statutory curriculum for citizenship which “might be fulfilled in combination with other subjects”.​[3]​ History, Geography (including Environmental Studies) and English are the subjects given the greatest emphasis. However, attention is also directed to specific opportunities presented by Mathematics, ICT, Science, Technology subjects, RE, PE, MFL and Business Studies and to more general possibilities within Art, Music and PSHE. At Key Stage 3 that covers just about everything; the additional opportunities arising in KS4 and 5 subjects such as Sociology, Psychology, Politics, Media Studies etc become self-evident on scrutiny of the Citizenship curriculum and those subjects’ specifications.It appears, however, that although all classroom teachers are expected to be contributing to pupils’ entitlement to a citizenship programme which is “coherent . . . in terms of the concepts, values and dispositions, skills and aptitudes and knowledge and understanding to be acquired” (Crick 1998; P35), not all are doing so. Some are looking to Citizenship students to fill the gaps, with varying degrees of support, some are doing their best in not always congenial circumstances, some are hoping it will all go away. The best strategies for each position are a) to support the development of properly trained teachers of Citizenship, b) to support the development of Citizenship-teaching competence amongst trainees in other subjects, and c) making good quality CPD in Citizenship available for practicing teachers.Although Citizenship is much more of a ‘shortage subject’ than any other, with only 300 trained teachers by the summer of 2003 (Davies 2003) and less than 600 by summer 2004, applicants for places are not offered the addition to the training allowance which other shortage subjects attract.  It is therefore likely to be some considerable time before there are enough Citizenship-trained teachers to meet schools’ needs, whether or not all schools recognise they have such needs. Of those being trained or recently qualified, not all will go into Citizenship teaching. We therefore need to make sure that all of our courses – PGCE, mentor training, CPD etc – identify and make the most of opportunities to enhance teachers’ knowledge and skills in relation to the National Curriculum for Citizenship.If we look at the six variables of teacher attitude identified above, we can see in each case that there is a need to develop and support Citizenship teaching. Those who are committed, converted or into co-existence need to be equipped to support the development of the subject and the contribution it makes to the life of a school. They need to be enabled to keep up to date with ideas and initiatives and to contribute their expertise and experiences to the benefit of others.Those mentors and other teachers who fit the colonisation, compliance and conflict categories also deserve opportunities for support and development, but of a different sort. Insecurities have to be addressed and issues clarified. Whether the issue is of misunderstanding the nature and content of citizenship or of working under duress and insecurity, the outcome will be limited subject development and low student achievement. Compliance and, to some extent, conflict, arise from what could again be effectively described as workplace bullying and are clearly in opposition to the principles of citizenship education. Colonisation and some aspects of conflict deprive pupils of their entitlement to a full education, for which bullying is perhaps a rather mild term. Just as schools have anti-bullying strategies and systems which support victims and re-engage perpetrators, teachers are entitled to the same support.Subject mentoring is a difficult and demanding role at the best of times. To mentor trainees with possibly greater subject knowledge must be even harder. Not only is it therefore essential that mentor training in citizenship goes beyond generic skills, but that HEIs provide other support through CPD – not only MA and other qualifications, but shorter and more focused sessions to address short-term and immediate concerns. There is no point in providing these if school CPD co-ordinators are not willing to release staff. Trainees in subjects other than citizenship deserve more than just lip-service, brief, non-specialist input; they will be expected to deliver citizenship through their own subject and, as recent entrants to the profession, schools should be able to expect them to have a greater awareness and understanding than previously trained colleagues.Tension/bullying is not only directed from SMT to teachers and from teachers to trainees. It is also essential that trainees recognise that they are entering a demanding profession, that schools are sometimes slow to respond to change, that mentors often have a range of other responsibilities, and that they need to display characteristics of good citizenship – tolerance, empathy, working within – in order that others might do the same.As in many other situations where conflict arises, much of the tension in the mentor/trainee relationship derives from external agencies, and neither central party is wholly to blame. We need commitment from SMTs beyond mission statements and timetable provision, and more mentors’ and their colleagues recognising the mixture of expertise and insecurity which many trainees bring. Trainees must recognise that citizenship might be more than a subject but schools and teachers are concerned with more than citizenship trainees. HEI tutors have a responsibility to create contexts in which everyone can feel valued and be enabled to develop their potential. In other words, we are all responsible for the problems; we are all capable of providing the solutions.BibliographyAdams, A. (1992) Bullying at Work: How to Confront and OvercomeIt London, ViragoCleaver, E., Ireland, E., & Kerr, D., (2003) ‘The Citizenship Education Longitudinal Study.’ Teaching Citizenship, 7, Autumn , pp. 15-19.Crick, B., (1998) Education for Citizenship and the teaching of Democracy in Schools: Final Report of the Advisory Group on Citizenship   London: QCADavies, I., (2003) ‘Initial Teacher Education and the Citizenship Agenda’  Teaching Citizenship Issue 7, Autumn 2003, pp. 30-35Leighton, R., (2002) Who are you? A discussion on citizenship provisionpaper presented at BSA conference, Leicester University, March 2002Leighton R (2004) What you give is what you get: a preliminary examination of teacher perceptions of the role of Citizenship education on its delivery.   http://www.ittcitized.info/articles.shtml (​http:​/​​/​www.ittcitized.info​/​articles.shtml​) QCA (1999) Citizenship: The National Curriculum for England   London: DfES/QCA publicationsQCA (2001)  A guide for senior managers and governors – Citizenship at key          stages 3  and 4.     			London: DfES/QCA publicationsSanderson, I., (2001) The Archers Anarchists’ Ambridge Jubilee London: Boxtree1^1	  ‘Citizenship is more than a statutory subject. If taught well and tailored to local needs, its skills and values will enhance democratic life for us all, both rights and responsibilities, beginning in school and radiating out.’ (QCA, 2001, p 3)^2	  Not all negotiate; at least one was presented with a timetable without prior discussion.^3	  The phrase “in combination with” appears to be interpreted by some as implying ‘only through’.

Trainees, mentors and citizenship: fair conflict resolution begins here

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Trainees, mentors and citizenship: fair conflict resolution begins here

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