Curriculum learning areas—content and pedagogy

The information, skills and competencies that children acquire at CSTL schools will prepare and enable them to be active and engaged citizens in all aspects of the society—social, economic, cultural and civic. This means that a CSTL school’s learning areas, content, and teaching and learning practices will include age-appropriate information and build understanding, capacity and competencies in relation to:

1. Sustainable inclusive development

2. Key development challenges

3. The responsibilities and rights of children, schools, families and communities, including socio-economic and civic responsibilities and rights that must be respected, protected, promoted and realized to overcome development challenges

4. Social cohesion, tolerance and the value of diversity

5. Cultural differences and values

6. Environmental sustainability and sustainable living

7. Gender equality

8. Life skills education

9. Comprehensive sexuality education, including education to prevent early pregnancies and HIV&AIDS

10. Civic, local and national democratic and governance affairs and processes

11. Literacy and numeracy

12. Science and maths

13. Information and communications technology (ICT)

Importantly, learners will acquire the information they need and be given opportunities to apply the knowledge to develop the relevant skills.

For example, learners will learn about their responsibility to be active participants in democratic societies through participation in elections and parliamentary participatory processes. In addition, they will be given opportunities to apply this knowledge by taking part in class and school governance and decision-making processes, and presenting reasoned arguments in a respectful way in these forums, and participating in moot courts and debates.

Pedagogical practices and relationships between educators and learners

The relationship between learners and educators in a CSTL school with a quality, relevant and inclusive curriculum is personal, responsive, interactive and mutually supportive. This will be seen in:

1. How knowledgeable teachers are about their learners’ circumstances, needs and interests and how they respond to barriers: The relationship between learners and their teachers is one of open and constructive dialogue and engagement. In a CSTL school, educators engage with their learners on what their needs and interests are, and use methodologies, materials and resources that respond to these, including special needs learning resources

2. How educators engage with their learners: In a CSTL school, educators fulfil their role as mediators and facilitators of the acquisition of information and how to use it. CSTL teachers:

o Ensure that learners have access to a diversity of information sources and platforms using media and a supportive network of informal educators, including visits to and teaching sessions by representatives from the media, NGOs, human rights institutes and the electoral commission

o Enable the critical use of information and development of skills to present reasoned positions and manage differences of opinion through, for example, facilitated dialogue, project-based learning, debating clubs and school newspapers

o Ensure that all learners have opportunities to meaningfully

exercise their knowledge to realise their rights and responsibilities

to bring about changes in their lives, and those of their peers, school community and family—for example, if children are provided with comprehensive sexuality education, they must be given access to adolescent-friendly health facilities to access services and ensure that they exercise healthy behaviours and practices

3. The ongoing monitoring of the learner’s progress throughout their education: CSTL educators will engage in ongoing learner monitoring to assess their progress and how well their needs and challenges are being met, and how well they are progressing in acquiring the full range of civic competencies

Infrastructure

A CSTL school providing a quality, relevant and inclusive curriculum will provide infrastructure that:

1. Enables learners to acquire and apply the diversity of information they need to be engaged and active citizens, including:

o Enough science and computer libraries and workrooms

o Media centres offering access to a diversity of media and ICT, as well as space for quiet reflection, debate and reading

o Environmentally sustainable and supportive infrastructure

o Platforms and tools to enable learners with special needs to access and use information

2. Is designed to support open dialogue and access to relevant information beyond the school’s boundaries, and promotes interaction and a sense of community that enable formal and informal learning

Teacher

competencies,

capacities and skills

Teachers will have 21st century teaching knowledge, competencies and capacities, as well as receive ongoing support to:

1. Provide holistic and diverse teaching—access to information, information on how to use it, and opportunities to use it—to enable children to know and exercise their responsibilities as active and engaged citizens

2. Develop child-centred, participatory and experiential teaching and learning strategies, such as project-based learning, debating and dialogues

3. Encourage and be tolerant of a diversity of views and opinions, and actively seek these out in the process of teaching and learning

4. Have access to professional learning communities that enable educators to collaborate, share best practices, and integrate 21st century skills into their routine classroom practices

Relationships with parents and communities

CSTL schools providing a relevant, quality and inclusive curriculum will become ecosystems or centralized hubs of learning that are facilitators— not just providers—of teaching and learning. They are a resource through which learners are enabled to access a diversity of information through an extended network of partners in the broader community and society.

This means that a CSTL school will:

1. Be supported by a network of partners that work collaboratively with schools to facilitate the sharing of information necessary for children to know, understand and practise their rights, responsibilities, skills and competencies necessary to be active, engaged citizens

2. Build partnerships with external role players that will provide supplementary teaching and learning, including:

o Businesses and business associations

o The media

o Electoral commissions

o NGOs

o Child-led organisations

o Human rights organisations and institutes

3. Include parents and caregivers as part of the educational continuum

and as such, support them to be co-educators, providing their children with ongoing support and opportunities to exercise their knowledge and competencies at home and in communities

A CSTL school builds a sound relationship with parents and caregivers by developing their understanding of 21st century education and supporting their role as co-educators. This may be done through regular information sharing sessions, inter-generational dialogues and workshops to inform parents and caregivers on 21st century learning and the curriculum, and identify ways in which they can create an enabling and supportive home environment where learners can continue to grow their 21st century skills.

Governance, leadership and coordination

In a CSTL school, children’s agency and responsibilities are recognised and they participate—in accordance with their evolving capacities—in decisions about their learning environment. Therefore, every CSTL school has:

1. Democratic and inclusive school support teams and/or school governing bodies responsible for planning and decision-making on teaching and learning, including planning of the curriculum framework. These will include children, parents and representatives from the community. The learners represented will include a proportion of vulnerable and historically marginalised learners

2. Regular training and mentoring for the school support team or school committee on a quality, relevant and inclusive curriculum and what this asks of the school community, and the roles and responsibilities of the team in supporting its implementation