VISION
Magna Academy citizenship education empowers students to gain knowledge, skills and understanding to prepare them to play a full, active and critical part in society. Citizenship education fosters students’ keen awareness and understanding of democracy, government and how laws are made and upheld.
Citizenship delivery equips students with the skills and knowledge to explore political and social issues critically, to weigh evidence, debate and make reasoned arguments. Students will gain an understanding of local and national politics and feel empowered to know how to take part in democratic Britain and how and when to petition for change.
Implementation and delivery
Students will also be introduced to financial awareness learning about key concepts and some of the financial facets of the UK. For example pensions, mortgages, interest, taxation, credit and debit. Students will learn how to budget as a young person becoming more financially independent.
The programme will be enhanced by guest speakers bringing lived experience to our students’ understanding.
Citizenship has its own place in our extended curriculum. All tutors teach citizenship as part of the Personal Development programme and citizenship is also delivered through the assembly programme However, citizenship is also embedded across the whole academy as outlined in our Citizenship Curriculum Overview.
Our History curriculum supports our students to develop their sense of place in the wider world and their sense of what it means to live in Britain in the twenty-first century.
All students study History at key stage 3 where students learn about the Magna Carta, the very beginnings of democracy and the identification of rights for the people of England. Students also learn about the challenges faced by Queen Elizabeth I and the tensions of power allocation between herself and her Parliamentarians.
Students move on to learn about the relationships between industrial Britain and the widening of the franchise, learning of the struggles and eventual triumph of the Chartists and the Suffragettes.
Students also learn about the twentieth century world with systems of government, protest movements and political ideologies notably in the UK and US but also further afield.
At key stage 4 History is a popular option choice and the curriculum embeds a deep understanding of democracy and political systems beyond democracy. Students will be able to identify the characteristics of Communism and Fascism through their work on Nazi Germany and the ideological power struggles of the Cold War.
At key stage 5 citizenship education in History A Level becomes far more diligent with students fully recognising and understanding the difference between left and right wing politics and this understanding spans to understanding the different economic approaches from both political ideologies.
Due to the rich citizenship provision throughout the academy, students are increasingly choosing to study Government and Politics at A-Level when students learn in detail about different political parties and ideologies and how and when citizens take part in the political process. Students learn about the different facets of government and how power is shared and where it is limited.
The English curriculum at Magna Academy rigorously engages with citizenship. Understanding the political contexts of the texts enables a more powerful understanding of the literature studied. In return, by examining political systems and their impact on different groups of people, through literature and different forms of writing, builds a deeper and more critical idea of what it means to be a citizen in the twentieth century world.
The English curriculum is diverse and intersectional incorporating a wide range of authors. In key stages 3 and 4 students will examine fiction and non-fiction from a diverse range of cultures and backgrounds engendering meaningful discussions around the ideas that underpin citizenship.
In year 7 students are challenged to learn about the rights of the individual and the impact of different political systems through two contrasting texts, The Tempest and Orwell’s Animal Farm. In year 8 students engage in critical thinking skills to help navigate citizenship examining different voices and political systems. In year 9 students examine the horrors of political tyranny through Julius Caesar and the Book Thief.
For GCSE, students learn through Inspector Calls that the post war British population moved politically to the left, examining class politics. Furthermore the concept of power through conflict is explored in the poetry unit. A- Level English continues to critically evaluate these themes in Frankenstein and the Handmaid’s Tale where life lived in a dystopian society and the treatment of minorities is investigated.