Citizenship at Noadswood is taught across Years 7, 8, 9 and 10. In addition to the curriculum time, all students follow a dedicated tutor time programme which includes key citizenship themes.
In Years 7 and 8, the course follows the National Relationship and Sex Education and health education curriculum. You can find further details of this by clicking the link below which will take you the Department for Education website:
Relationships and sex education (RSE) and health education - GOV.UK (www.gov.uk)
This was updated ready for delivery from September 2021 and, as you'll see from the course outline below, in order to accommodate these changes and ensure all concepts are covered for all students, there is some repetition of certain elements across the different year groups.
Students are taught a range of subjects which will support them in understanding key concepts and key skills they will need throughout their life including topics such as sex and drugs education, first aid and finances to name but a few.
Our RSHE and Citizenship plan for 2022 - 2023, can be found here - click link
Year 7
During Year 7 students will study the following:
Autumn Term: Resillience, Self Esteem, Social media and bullying (including cyber bullying), families, parenting, friendships, puberty.
Spring Term: Healthy lifestyles, smoking, drugs, mental health and well-being (including lessons on self-harm and end of life thoughts), grief and bereavement and body positivity. The second half of the term explores finances including budgeting, spending and loans and interest rates.
Summer Term: Prejudice and discrimination, the law, rights and responsibilities, personal identity, British values, risk taking, emotional regulation, first aid and then, in the later part of the term, sustainability and the environment.
Year 8:
During Year 8 students will study the following:
Autumn Term: Sex Education including lessons on consent, healthy relationships, toxic relationships, sexual abuse, pornography and sexually transmitted illness.
Spring Term: Human rights including lessons on domestic abuse and child sexual exploitation. We also look at anti-social behaviour, binge drinking and drugs. Lessons on gambling, knife crime and the law for young people are also included this term.
Summer Term: British values, tolerance, prejudice and discrimination, British values and extremism and radicalisation. We then move back to revisit lessons on finances, this time looking at income and expenditure and how taxes work.
In 2021 - 2022, our Year 9 cohort embarked on their Citizenship GCSE. The course follows the AQA GCSE and, as outlined in their specification, the course has the power to motivate and enable young people to become thoughtful, active citizens.
Students gain a deeper knowledge of democracy, government and law, and develop skills to create sustained and reasoned arguments, present various viewpoints and plan practical citizenship actions to benefit society.
They will also gain the ability to recognise bias, critically evaluate argument, weigh evidence and look for alternative interpretations and sources of evidence, all of which are essential skills valued by higher education and employers.
The course is spit into 5 key areas which students will study throughout year 9 and 10:
- Citizenship skills, processes and methods
- Life in modern Britain
- Rights and responsibilities
- Politics and participation
- Active citizenship
Assessment
Students will sit two papers, both of which are 1 hour and 45 minutes long. Each paper is marked out of 80 and is worth 50% of the final grade.
Paper 1:
- Section A: Active citizenship questions: questions on the citizenship action of others and questions on the students taking citizenship action investigation (40 marks)
- Section B: Politics and participation question (40 marks)
- Question types: multiple-choice, short answer, source-based questions, extended answer
Paper 2:
- Section A: Life in modern Britain questions (40 marks)
- Section B: Rights and responsibilities questions (40 marks)
- Question types: multiple-choice, short answer, source-based questions, extended answer.
Year 10
For the 2021 - 2022 cohort, our Year students have 1 hour per week of Citizenship and continue to study in line with the RSE and health education curriculum.
They will study:
Autumn Term: Happiness, self-esteem, managing anxiety, social media use and body shaming. The second part of the term focuses on revision, study skills and internet safety.
Spring Term: Multiculturalism, community cohesion, the justice system including the law around harassment and stalking. We also spend some time look at the importance of sleep and healthy eating before revisiting skills around revision and managing study skills.
Summer Term: Risk taking including online gambling and binge drinking. We also deliver lessons on first aid.
Year 11
Our Year 11 students access the key citizenship themes through the dedicated tutor time programme. We have also arranged for additional catch-up sessions and drop-down days to ensure that any content missed over the last two years as a result of the pandemic, has been taught. For example, students have had access to additional sessions on sex education and diversity and inclusion workshops.