The Rule of Law for Citizenship Education: Overview
In 2014, the Centre launched an innovative curriculum of lessons on equality, human rights and access to justice.
These lesson plans twere initially piloted amongst a small number of schools and then later refined in a second edition textbook for Key Stage 3 (KS3). This model was replicated for Key Stage 4 (KS4) and scaled across England for both age brackets over the next four academic years.
hat have been used by teachers across England. These resources were supplemented by support and events to improve teachers' capacity to deliver the materials.
The KS3 book can be downloaded here.
The KS4 book can be downloaded here.
The books received the accredited Quality Marks of the Association for Citizenship Teaching (ACT) and the Citizenship Foundation (CF), the national subject associations representing Citizenship teachers and stakeholders.
To date, over 250 schools have participated in the programme for KS3 and KS4, with further use at A Level and in non-Citizenship subject areas. An independent evaluation of the pilot phase found that 97% of students felt the course had given them a better understanding of the justice system, and 90% felt the programme should continue to run in their schools. Monitoring and evaluation of the project scale-up identified that the resources were:
- Curriculum-relevant and an effective teaching tool;
- User-friendly, providing step-by-step guidance for non-specialist teachers;
- Interesting and engaging for students, with great videos and case studies.
The project has been funded by the generous support of the Legal Education Foundation, Lexis Nexis, the Magna Carta Trust, Travers Smith LLP and Mishcon de Reya LLP.
