Citizenship
The Global Gateway is supporting school links
(UK and overseas) that examine Britishness in a global context.
We have activity materials and notes available. We'd also like
to support you to get school links to enable you to start this
project.
A model project
- Partner schools agree to present to each other a portrait of
their home country.
- Class discussion on how a portrait of Britain could be compiled
for a partner school, a suitable medium to use, discussions about a
‘typical’ Briton, identity and image, and positive and negative
ways that diversity is viewed in Britain.
- Class works with local museums, community groups and other
resources, or other schools, to build up a portrait of Britain
(reference Who Do We Think We Are?)
- Meanwhile a partner school does the same exercise, looking at
different communities that make up their own country identity. In
many countries, such as India, this is called Social Studies. (The
partner school could choose to study and present a different topic
– what is important is that the audience is a class of peers from a
country outside the UK.)
- Schools exchange and discuss their work, in particular issues
about national identity and pride, peace and reconciliation, human
rights and respect for all.
Who Do We Think We Are?
WDWTWA offers definition activities to help explain the multiple
meanings of ‘Britishness’ (geographic, political, social, cultural
& historical).
The Respect for All framework on the QCA website suggests
activities to support Communnity Cohesion through school linking
and ICT.
I live here and I think is a short, simple class activity that
could be used within one class, with two neighbouring schools, with
schools in different parts of the UK or the world.
The Community Cohesion toolkit on the DCSF Global Gateway gives
more support for the project outlined above.
Schools interested in this topic can be found in USA, India,
Kenya, South Africa, Italy, Germany, Sri Lanka, Indonesia,
Australia or Pakistan. If you need help setting up a link with any
of these countries, email editor@globalgateway.org with
WDWTWA in the subject line and outlining your interests.
The DCSF Global Gateway is helping to support
strand 2, national identity and values, in the Who Do We Think We
Are? Programme.
