Ofsted inspectors find some schools struggling to teach citizenship

Some secondary schools are still struggling to teach citizenship, inspectors warned today.

An Ofsted report found that in some secondaries, pupils had a patchy knowledge of the subject. While many knew a lot about topics like human rights, there were "important gaps" in other areas, such as understanding politics.

Citizenship was made a compulsory part of the national curriculum in England seven years ago.

Since then, although the lessons on offer are generally improving, some schools still do not fully understand what they need to do to provide pupils with a good education in citizenship, the report found.

The study is based on visits to 91 secondary schools between September 2006 and July 2009.

The findings show that while half of the schools were judged to be at least good for their students' achievement in the subject, ten were inadequate.

These schools had done "little or nothing" to introduce the subject, and it had been "misunderstood or ignored".

The study adds that in schools where the citizenship lessons on offer were simply "satisfactory", students were getting an uneven education.

"Typically, students knew a good deal about some aspects of the curriculum (such as human rights), but had important gaps in their knowledge.

"The quality of teaching was also uneven and the curriculum only partly covered," it said.

Often in these schools, citizenship shared a timetable slot with Personal, Social, Health and Economic (PSHE) education, but often the time allowed was "too little to do justice to either subject", inspectors said.

The report also found that teaching of the subject was outstanding in only one school, with just over half rated good. Most lessons were not taught by citizenship specialists.

The best schools gave pupils opportunities outside the classroom - for example through volunteering or as part of a school council.

Ofsted chief inspector Christine Gilbert, said: "Citizenship is becoming a well established part of the school curriculum and this report highlights the ways in which schools are successfully promoting social responsibility, community involvement and political understanding.

"It is important that the good practice featured in the report is replicated more widely."

A spokesman for the Department for Children, Schools and Families welcomed the report.

He said: "While we are pleased with the progress which has been made in getting citizenship increasingly embedded in secondary schools, we do nevertheless take very seriously that some schools have more to do.

"With this in mind, we are accepting the report's recommendations in full and will maintain the number of initial teacher training places in citizenship and continue the professional development provision for teachers so the good progress in the majority of schools is extended to all schools."