Introduction to Key Stage 3 Assessment in
Citizenship Toolkit.
This assessment toolkit grew out of a presentation to Citizenship
NQTs in June 2006. This paper should be read and then the toolkit
explored. It can be adapted and developed, for as with much in
Citizenship assessment, practice will develop better models for
adoption by teachers.
Describing assessment in Citizenship at Key Stage 3
As of August 2003 schools were required to assess pupil attainment
in Citizenship at the end of Key Stage 3 and also to report progress to
parents at the end of each school year. Assessment will enable
schools to report to parents on progress and attainment. Pupil
attainment should be measured against the end of key stage
description which is set out in the QCA document Citizenship at key
stages 1-4: Guidance on assessment, recording and reporting and
can be seen at www.nc.uk.net. The principles of assessment state
that assessment should:
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reflect the learning and achievement of all pupils
measure what is valued about Citizenship
raise standards of achievement
be planned as an intergral part of subject teaching
provide an opprtunity for pupils to reflect on their learning
evidence progress in skills of participation as well as knowledge
involve pupils as partners
Background reading
Students/teachers should make reference to :
QCA publication Citizenship at Key Stages 1 - 4 Guidance on
assessment, recording and reporting QCA 2002
QCA publication Assessing Citizenship Example assessment
activities for key stage 3 pub 2006 - included as an pdf attachment
The Citizenship CPD handbook Making Sense of Citizenship pub
Hodder Education 2006
The QCA Citizenship Scheme of Work for Key Stage 3, Unit 19 on
Assesssment, pub QCA 2002
Assessment of Pupils by Peter Brett, St Martins College, Carlisle
2004
www.citized.info select Secondary then Mentors and scroll to the
paper.
Planning Assessment for Citizenship Education by Lee Jerome.
Anglia Ruskin University, Chelmsford 2003
www.citized.info select Tutor Induction and scroll to Other
Resources to find the booklet.
The toolkit
In addition to this introduction, the toolkit consists of :
Workshop leaders notes (p4 of this doc)
Students-Teachers handout (p8 of this doc)
The Challenge of Assessing Citizenship: Key Questions (p10 this
doc)
PowerPoint presentation – Measuring Up: Assessing Citizenship
PowerPoint Notes
Two photo resources (p11 this doc)
Article from the Guardian newspaper (p12 this doc)
Extract from UN convention (see p14 of this doc)
Question raising sheet (p15 of this doc)
QCA Citizenship Assessment booklet
The toolkit needs to be explored in order for its usefulness to be
maximised. It may be used in a number of settings - see below. The
toolkit should ideally be part of a series on assessment, recording
and reporting for one cannot be treated alone without reference to the
other two. They come as a triumvirate and should be perceived as a
whole if a quality product is to result.
Suggestions for using the toolkit
By current Citizenship teachers as part of school based CPD.
Workshop leaders notes
The Challenge of Assessing Citizenship: Key Questions
PowerPoint
PowerPoint notes
Photo images
Article from Guardian newspaper
UN convention extract
Question raising sheet
By Citizenship NQTs wanting to enrich their understanding of
assessment.
Students-Teachers handout
PowerPoint
PowerPoint notes
Photo images
Article from Guardian newspaper
UN convention extract
Question raising sheet
By ITT Citizenship course tutors as part of an ITT Citizenship course,
as an enrichment activity for Citizenship NQTs on Key Stage 3
assessment or as part of the Citizenship CPD Certificate course.
Workshop leaders notes
The Challenge of Assessing Citizenship: Key Questions
Students-Teachers handout
PowerPoint
PowerPoint notes
Photo images
Article from Guardian newspaper
UN convention extract
Question raising sheet
A workshop leader’s guidance for Assessing
Citizenship activity.
A suggested approach to source based
assessments
Workshop leaders should ensure that they read these notes before
embarking on the activities. They should ensure that they have the
following resources with these notes:
PowerPoint presentation – Measuring Up: Assessing Citizenship
Notes to accompany the PowerPoint presentation
The Challenge of Assessing Citizenship: Key Questions (p8 this doc)
Two photographic images (p9 this doc)
An extract from the Geneva Convention on the Rights of Prisoners of
War (p10 this doc)
A precis of an article from the Guardian newspaper
A pdf of QCAs assessment booklet on KS3 Citizenship
Students/teachers handout
Question Raising sheet
Workshop leaders should aim to cover numbers 1-4 below during the
workshop. Careful management is needed to cover them all,
especially if the allotted time is less than two hours.
1. Begin the session by explaining to the students/teachers that they
are going to explore key issues in assessing KS3 Citizenship. Ensure
that you have the following texts to refer to:
QCA publication Citizenship at Key Stages 1 - 4 Guidance on assessment,
recording and reporting QCA 2002
QCA publication Assessing Citizenship Example assessment activities for
Key Stage 3 pub 2006 - included as an Adobe pdf attachment
The Citizenship CPD handbook Making Sense of Citizenship pub Hodder
Education 2006
The QCA Citizenship Scheme of Work for Key Stage 3, Unit 19 on
Assesssment, pub QCA 2002
2. Issue The Challenge of Assessing Citizenship: Key Questions.
The individual questions may be cut into strips and distributed to
groups or pairs of students/teachers for a response. Comments may
be recorded for future use - see 5 below.
Move on to show the PowerPoint with the notes. Ensure that
students/teachers have copies of the slides and accompanying notes.
The presentation itself is intended to enable students/teachers to
consider the key aspects of assessment in Key Stage 3 Citizenship;
practice should and must evolve through trial and error. The advice
herein should enable better practice to evolve. It is not necessary to
use every slide and workshop leaders should select as they feel fit.
You may choose to use the whole slide presentation, select the slides
that you use ( perhaps 1-9 then15-18) or only refer to specific ones in
order to spend more time on discussion about delegates experience
and the sources activity.
3. Explain that in the second part of the workshop they will look at
sources about a Citizenship issue and devise an appropriate
assessment task. Workshop leaders should circulate copies of the
Students-Teachers Handout. They should work in groups of two.
Provide copies of the sources for each group and Guidance notes.
The sources are all about the treatment of prisoners of war in Iraq by
allied armies and consist of:
Two photographs of alleged abuse
Extracts from the Geneva Convention relative to the Treatment of the
Prisoners of War, of which the UK is a signatory
A precis of a newspaper report from the Guardian newspaper dated
January 2005
Remind students/teachers that the use of sources in assessment of
Citizenship should not imply an attempt to satisfy academic concerns.
Sources can be used in assessment in a variety of ways and do not
require a written essay response, though that does not mean that a
teacher might not consider this an appropriate way to use the
materials. Those who have already made contact with the history
department in school may be familiar with the method. The images
are taken from British newspapers and were subject to some
conjecture as to their provenance and reliability. However, it is
undoubtedly true that in time of war such behaviour does occur. The
sources might be allied to a variety of aspects of Citizenship work
including:
The media
Human Rights
International law
Topical issues
The photographs are extremely graphic and both workshop leaders
and delegates should consider how to make effective use of the
materials and their suitablility with some learners. Workshop leaders
should remind students/teachers about the importance of a sensitive
approach to such work and also relate discussion to guidance on
teaching about topical and controversial issues. Guidance can be
found in Making Sense of Citizenship Section 3, Chapter 7 pages 103
to 107. Workshop leaders should consider the language used in the
two written sources. Students/teachers might consider re-writing for
pupils of different abilities; as seen the written sources are not
differentiated.
The workshop leader should discuss the following questions with
students/teachers:
How they might be used
What the assessment might look like - written, pictorial, graphic, oral
presentation, video, flow diagram etc
What additional or revised resources it may require
What aspects of the Citizenship Programme of Study it supports and
assesses
What previous learning might be necessary
What any work unit with the assessment might look like
What the role of learners in developing this assessment might be
What work might be needed to develop the assessment for different
learners or in different settings
What the outcomes might be in terms of product by the learners
How the work might be recorded
Who else might be involved in the activity e.g. non teaching
assistants, visitors etc
4. Finally ask students/teachers to devise an outline for the
assessment. Time may be short at this point and an outline should be
just that; a thumbnail sketch showing intent and ideas. This will
suffice if it is obvious that not every pair can have time to develop
their ideas and report back fully to the group. If there is more time
available, students/teachers can plan in more detail.
5. As a supplementary activity after the session, students/teachers
might develop this work with their peers and also make use of the
Question Raising attachment. Such questions might be used by
students/teachers with their learners in a variety of ways including:
As a stimulus using the images
In a hot seating activity in relation to the author of the newspaper
source
In small group discussion
As a whole class aide memoir prior to issuing sources
Students/teachers should be encouraged to try out the activity in
class, using the sources if appropriate or devising their own sources.
Workshop leaders may also choose to give students/teachers a copy
of the QCA pdf or have it available to download to their flash drives.
Workshop leaders may re-issue The Challenge of Assessing
Citizenship: Key Questions and ask students/teachers to review their
learning by examining their previous answers and dicussing if they
have now changed their views or understanding.
students/teachers handout
Assessing Citizenship : Approaching
source based assessments
The sources are all about the treatment of prisoners of war in Iraq by
allied armies. The images are taken from British newspapers and
were subject to some conjecture as to their provenance and reliability.
However, it is undoubtedly true that in time of war such treatment
does occur. The sources might be allied to a variety of aspects of
Citizenship work, including:
The media
Human Rights
International law
Topical issues
Look at the sources. They consist of:
Two photographs of alleged abuse
Extracts from the Geneva Convention relative to the Treatment of the
Prisoners of War, of which the UK is a signatory
A precis of a newspaper report from the Guardian newspaper dated
January 2005
The photographs are extremely graphic and you should consider how
to make effective use of the materials and their suitablility with some
learners. You should be minded about the importance of a sensitive
approach to such work and also relate discussion to guidance on
teaching about topical and controversial issues. Guidance can be
found in Making Sense of Citizenship Section 3, Chapter 7 pages 103
to 107.
You should now consider how a source based activity might be
devised for Citizenship by discussing these questions:
How the sources might be used
What the assessment might look like - written, pictorial, graphic, oral
presentation, video, flow diagram etc
Is the languauge in the written sources too complex
What additional or revised resources it may require
What aspects of the Citizenship PoS it supports and assesses
What previous learning might be necessary
What might any unit of work with the assessment look like
What might the role of learners be in developing this assessment
might
What work might be needed to develop the assessment for different
learners or in different settings
What might the outcomes be in terms of product by the learners
How might the work might be recorded
Who else might be involved in the activity e.g. non teaching
assistants, visitors etc
Once you have discussed these questions you should devise an
outline for an assessment in your pair. You will have limited time
to do this. You should also explain your ideas to others in the
workshop.
Extension
After the session has ended you might look at the sheet Question
Raising. Such questions might be taken into classrooms for
development in using the sources or be the basis for devising a CPD
activity for peers. The Question Raising sheet might be used:
As a stimulus using the images
In a hot seating activity in relation to the author of the newspaper
source
In small group discussion
As a whole class aide memoir prior to issuing sources
You might try to write an assessment either using these sources if
you are teaching about one of the themes above or finding other
sources to support a topic or theme that you are teaching about.
The Challenge of Assessing Citizenship: Key Questions
Students/teachers should consider these leading questions about
Citizenship and assessment before exploring the toolkit. They are
central to thinking about assessment.
What sorts of pupil skills are needed in Citizenship assessment?
How can teachers help young people develop these skills?
What techniques are most useful for developing assessment skills?
How can teachers get good assessment going?
With reference to oral assessment and group assessment, what
techniques might teachers develop in order to assess pupil
performance?
What sort of teacher skills are needed in Citizenship assessment?
What works in assessment already and why?
How can teachers recognise good assessment?
What does not work in assessment and why not?
More UK soldiers linked to Iraq abuse
Audrey Gillan in Osnabrück
an edited extract from the Guardian newspaper, January
28th 2005
More British soldiers were involved in the abuse of Iraqis at Camp
Breadbasket but only four have been charged, a court martial in
Germany was told yesterday. The more widespread mistreatment of
prisoners emerged amid revelations that one squaddie had boasted
to a fellow soldier that he gave an Iraqi electric shocks.
Fusilier Gary Bartlam, of the 1st Battalion, the Royal Regiment of
Fusiliers, is alleged to have bragged about taking part in the
mistreatment of Iraqis after an anti-looting mission at the camp
codenamed Operation Ali Baba. In a witness statement read before
the court, another fusilier said Bartlam, who was 18 at the time, had
told how he had abused the Iraqi prisoner. He denied this.
The court was told that there had been two separate, so far
unreported, incidents of abuse at the British camps Gecko and
Apache in south-east Iraq. Charges in those cases have been
dropped in return for the accused giving evidence against his fellow
soldiers. The court was presented with a picture of the mistreatment
of an Iraqi detainee. It shows a squaddie holding a light machine gun
with his foot on the back of one of three Iraqis who have been forced
on to their knees with their faces in the dirt. Taking the witness stand,
Bartlam, who was found guilty at a court martial this month after
pleading guilty, admitted that he had had four further charges
dropped against him in return for turning Queen's evidence. He had
faced up to 10 years in prison for one of those charges but was left
with the prospect of a maximum of two years for the crimes he
admitted.
The court heard that Bartlam had boasted of giving electric shocks to
detainees and making the men "shag each other" during the antilooting operation. It was also told of an incident at Camp Apache
where he prodded an Iraqi in the ribs with a camouflage pole and
said: "If I had it my way you would be dead."
After the incident at Camp Breadbasket, it is alleged he bragged to
another soldier that he had broken one of the detainees' arms, and
said: "The only thing I wanted to do over here was break someone's
arm and now I've done that." He denied this.
Corporal Daniel Kenyon, 33, and lance corporals Darren Larkin, 30,
and Mark Cooley, 25, face a total of nine charges relating to the
alleged abuse. If found guilty, the men face prison sentences and
dismissal from the army with disgrace. The three argue that they
were only following orders. They claim they had not been given
training on how to handle prisoners of war or civilians.
Geneva Convention relative to the Treatment of Prisoners of War
Adopted on 12 August 1949 by the Diplomatic Conference for the Establishment
of
International Conventions for the Protection of Victims of War, held in Geneva
from 21 April to 12 August, 1949
entry into force 21 October 1950
PART II
GENERAL PROTECTION OF PRISONERS OF WAR
Article 13
Prisoners of war must at all times be humanely treated. Any unlawful
act or omission by the Detaining Power causing death or seriously
endangering the health of a prisoner of war in its custody is
prohibited, and will be regarded as a serious breach of the present
Convention. In particular, no prisoner of war may be subjected to
physical mutilation or to medical or scientific experiments of any kind
which are not justified by the medical, dental or hospital treatment of
the prisoner concerned and carried out in his interest.
Likewise, prisoners of war must at all times be protected, particularly
against acts of violence or intimidation and against insults and public
curiosity.
Measures of reprisal against prisoners of war are prohibited.
Encouraging Citizenship thinking through question raising
Using the right questions with pupils can develop thinking or restrict it; develop a
topic or ring fence it. Deciding how a question might be framed and where that
question might lead - open ended or closed - is important and is critical to
improving classroom practice. The following are possible questions for
consideration.
Questions about substantive issues
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What are the rights and responsibilities in this situation? How might they
conflict?
Do you think that situation - or rule, law, behaviour - is fair? Why or why not?
How could it be made fairer?
How does this relate to your experience?
What are the issues here?
Which moral or legal rules apply here/
What do you think would be best or fair as an outcome for most people?
What do you sympathise with or feel sorry for? How do you think they feel?
What might be the consequences of that for individuals or groups?
What should happen to people who do that and why?
What do you think should happen to people who think like that?
What would happen if everyone behaved like that?
What could you say to person X to persuade them differently/
Who had the power and/or authority? How did they use it? Fairly? Wisely?
Who should make that decision? An individual? The whole group?
How far should people be treated as equal or different and on what grounds?
What personal qualities are needed for this role or task?
What beliefs or ideas are commonly held about this type of situation?
What kind of society do you want to live in?
Questions about analysis
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What do you think about this and why?
What is the range of opinion on this issue in this group, and more generally?
Which are good arguments and which are less good?
How can you decide what is a good or bad argument\/
What do we agree/disagree on? Why is this?
Has our discussion covered the important issues?
source based on QCA KS3 Citizenship Scheme of Work, page 45