Citizenship Foundation

Full title: Citizenship Foundation: Bringing Magna Carta to Life in Primary Schools

Established in 1989, the Citizenship Foundation is a UK-wide education charity with 27 years’ experience giving young people the confidence, skills and confidence they need to shape their future in a fast changing world. The Citizenship Foundation’s programmes and resources – which have been used by 80% of UK secondary schools – help young people understand their rights and obligations to each other in a society based on the rule of law. Magna Carta 800 has awarded the Citizenship Foundation £4,000 to support the work of their flagship Go-Givers programme.

Go-Givers is the UK’s largest active citizenship programme for children at primary school. In 2014, over half a million children between the ages of 5-11, supported by 30,480 teachers, took part in the programme. Independent evaluation has demonstrated that the Go-Givers programme makes a major impact on children’s educational development, helping them develop as caring informed young citizens who understand the concepts of fairness and justice. As part of the Magna Carta 800 celebrations the Citizenship Foundation will develop free resources which will bring to life the key principles of Magna Carta for 7-11 year olds.

Magna Carta is all about fairness – something that most children care passionately about and its fundamental purpose was to limit the arbitrary use of power. The new resources will address the following questions to guide a class discussion and follow up work on the concept of justice:

• Have you ever said ‘That’s not fair!’? Why did you say it?
• How do you know when something is unfair?
• Has anybody ever tricked or cheated you? How did it make you feel?
• Have you ever been punished in a way you felt was unfair? What was unfair about it?
• If you had a chance to serve in a children’s court, do you think you would be able to make fair decisions? What if the person charged was a friend?
• Does being fair mean you always treat people equally?
The investment from Magna Carta 800 will help the Citizenship Foundation
• Develop engaging Go-Givers resources which link the timeless principles of Magna Carta to situations relevant to the lives of 7-11 year olds in modern Britain.
• Promote the new free Magna Carta resources to 450 primary schools in England via their Go-Givers e-bulletin and telephone calls.
• Invest more resources in to measure the impact of the work they do to increase primary school children’s understanding of the rule of law and concepts of justice.
• Ensure that the Magna Carta resources are made available free of charge on-line at http://www.go-givers.org/ for all 25,000 primary schools in the UK from September 2015 until at least January 2020. This would leave a lasting legacy for Magna Carta 800 well beyond the 800th anniversary.

For more information on Go-Givers visit www.go-givers.org or watch our video.

If you would like more information on the work of the Citizenship Foundation visit www.citizenshipfoundation.org.uk or contact Citizenship Foundation Director of Development Paul Bower on [email protected] or Tel: 07711 118388

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Alice Richmond

Deputy Chairman, Magna Carta 800th Committee

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