DEPARTMENT FOR
CHILDREN, SCHOOLS AND FAMILIES News Release (2008/0125) issued by
The Government News Network on 23 June 2008
- First Annual
Citizenship Week embodies the Olympic Spirit -
Pupils from schools across the country are being encouraged to
explore their identity, ask what it means to be British and
celebrate diversity as part of the first Who Do We Think We Are?
Week to help build community cohesion.
Schools Minister Jim Knight will today launch a week of national
events by visiting a trailblazing scheme where schools with
largely white pupils in rural areas link with those with a
majority of Muslim pupils in urban Bradford to develop
understanding, appreciation and shared values to overcome tensions
and bring people together.
Sir Keith Ajegbo's review of Diversity and Citizenship in
the curriculum, published in January 2007 and welcomed by the
Government, recommended a week in which schools focus on exploring
issues of identity, diversity and shared values. This will mark
its first year.
With the Olympics around the corner, it will also give young
people a chance to explore ideas of national pride,
'Britishness' and international cooperation, especially
as today also marks International Olympic Day.
Classrooms during the week will also consider challenging issues
around faith, community, history and ethnicity. The Ajegbo report
found that white working class boys and girls have a negative
perception of their British identity and can feel as
disenfranchised and negative about their British identity as
non-white pupils.
Jim Knight will be travelling around the country during the week
visiting various schools and projects.
The Bradford model of school linking Mr Knight is visiting has
proven very successful in promoting community cohesion and led to
the Government investing £2m, supported by £1m donation from the
Pears Foundation, to establish the Schools Linking Network in
October 2007 to support all schools across the country to set up
linking projects.
In Bradford he will be accompanied by Paralympian Tanni
Grey-Thompson - one of the country's most decorated athletes,
as part of a series of visits around "Britishness" and
the Olympic and Paralympic Games in 2012.
They will discuss with school pupils sometimes controversial
issues, such as: 'which national team do you support';
'is it alright for sportspeople to switch the country they
compete for'; and 'how much does national pride have to
do with the will to win'.
This year children of many cultural and ethnic backgrounds from
primary and secondary schools in Bradford will come together at
Marley Stadium to stage their own sporting event.
Jim Knight will also visit the country's only maintained
secondary Sikh school, Guru Nanak in London, which Ofsted
considers to be a model school for meeting the new duty to promote
community cohesion.
He will then return to his own primary school in Greenwich - an
opportunity to reflect on his own identity.
Over 500 schools have formally announced their intention to get
involved in the week, and planned activities include:
*
cultural video diaries;
* cultural celebrations of dance, food
and drama;
* visits to places of worship;
* firming up
national and international school links;
* local research and
community projects around local history and geography
fieldwork;
* school debates around values, identities and
diversity;
* guest speakers from the community;
* working
with museums, archives and libraries.
From September Ofsted will begin to inspect schools on their duty
to promote community cohesion. Activities like Who Do We Think We
Are? Week and school linking are key ways schools can fulfil this duty.
It will also help students and teachers prepare for the new
'identity and diversity' strand of the citizenship
curriculum - which will be taught from September.
Minister for Schools and Learners Jim Knight said:
"The Olympic spirit, which brings people from different
cultural backgrounds together, is embodied in these projects.
Young people from different backgrounds are discussing some of
today's most controversial questions in an atmosphere of
mutual respect.
"Schools should be our breeding grounds for tolerance - one
of the essential British values. In a world and society that seems
to be constantly challenging young people, it is important that
pupils have a voice and an understanding that bind communities together.
"The citizenship curriculum encourages them to take an
interest in topical and controversial issues and to engage in
discussion and debate. Pupils learn about their rights,
responsibilities, duties and freedoms and about laws, justice and
democracy. They learn to take part in decision-making and
different forms of action.
"Every school has a moral responsibility, regardless of the
social or ethnic make-up of its pupils, to educate children so
that they can live in, work in and enjoy our diverse society. That
is why Ofsted will be inspecting schools on how well they promote
community cohesion from this September."
Sir Keith Ajegbo said:
"People migrate, people travel, people trawl the globe on
the internet. We are a world on the move. But do we know who lives
around us? Why we live where we do? What is good and bad about our neighbourhood?
"I hope that 'Who Do We Think We Are' week gives
pupils the opportunity to look first at their local communities
and to study the relationships, the triumphs and the tensions
around them. We believe the journey begins at home and then moves
outwards to the wider UK and global contexts."
NOTES TO EDITORS
* Who Do We Think We Are? Week is run by the Department for
Children, Schools and Families with the Royal Geographical Society
and Historical Association providing classroom materials and
support for teachers.
* The London Organising Committee of the Olympic and Paralympic
Games (LOCOG) have also been involved and 23 June also marks
International Olympic Day.
* See http://www.whodowethinkweare.org
for more details.
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