Citizenship & Christianity

Clare Richards

Rating:

The idea behind this resource is a sound one, i.e. to show how citizenship can be explored through the Christian faith. Each chapter is linked to one of the QCDA 11 citizenship units of work. This theme is then unpacked through engaging activities and starters, examples of readings from sacred texts, examples of practice in the world today and in history, suggestions for hymns and prayer as well as follow up. Many of the examples given are well thought out, particularly the fun and creative ways to begin the assemblies.

However, my first reservation was about the title of the book; is this a resource for assemblies or for collective worship? With suggestions for prayer, hymns and biblical reading, one might assume the latter, but this would depend on which part of each chapter the user decided to focus on. When there is sometimes misunderstanding in schools about the difference between assemblies and collective worship, this resource does not make expectations clear.

Secondly, the audience of the book is unclear. The majority of the book focuses on Christianity and it is written from a Christian viewpoint, which is made clear in the introduction. Nevertheless, there are references to other world faiths including Judaism, Hinduism and Islam. Some of the references show an obvious Christian bias and would need careful handling in a school context.

The most useful parts of this book are those which would not necessarily be used in an assembly/collective worship context, but those that could be used in lessons. This book tries to do too many things, and does not succeed particularly well.

Reviewer: Kathryn Wright, Independent Education Consultant

Review posted on: 22 January 2010

Product information:

Media: Book
Category: Primary
Published by: Kevin Mayhew
Date published: 2003
Binding: Paperback
Number of pages: 92
Illustrations: Black and white drawings
RRP: £10.99
ISBN: 978 1 84417 080 2
Use: Assembly material

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