Strengthening citizenship education is important

More than half of the schools in primary and secondary education examined by the Inspectorate did not meet the statutory requirements for promoting citizenship. This does not mean that citizenship receives insufficient attention in schools, but that the structure and quality of education require improvement.

Like the Inspectorate, School & Safety believes that good citizenship education is more important than ever. All the tensions in society and the hardening of social relations enter the microcosm that is a school.

School & Safety therefore endorses the Inspectorate’s recommendation: “Teachers and school leaders: continue to invest in the development of citizenship education. Aim for concretely formulated learning objectives and a coherent structure.” To support schools in this, School & Safety participates in the Citizenship Education Expertise Centre. One of the Expertise Centre’s objectives is to promote purposeful, systematic and recognisable citizenship education, in which the school serves as a safe practice environment. Through its website, newsletters and annual magazine, the Expertise Centre provides information to school boards, school leadership, coordinators and teachers in primary, secondary, special and vocational education.

Take action on your safety policy

It is good to read that the Inspectorate rates ‘the safety standard’ as satisfactory at most schools and departments in primary and secondary education during its sample-based quality inspections. At the same time, some schools still find it difficult to give structural attention to safety policy, and it is often driven by incidents.

The Inspectorate makes four recommendations concerning well-being and social safety, all four of which School & Safety endorses:

  • School boards: set concrete objectives for both well-being and social safety, so that all pupils and students experience a pleasant school and work-placement environment.
  • School leadership and programme directors: ensure an ongoing dialogue with staff, pupils, parents and students about the well-being and social safety of both pupils and staff. Ask about and analyse both topics, and agree on what constitutes desirable and undesirable behaviour by both pupils and staff.
  • School leadership: use the results of the annual safety monitor as the basis for the ongoing dialogue with pupils and students. To do this, analyse the results thoroughly and pay close attention to who does not feel safe.
  • Teachers: the greatest gains lie in the basics: showing interest in how the pupil or student is really doing. Make sure you are equipped to have difficult conversations, such as those about bullying, discrimination and polarisation. Managers have a facilitating role in this.

Support from School & Safety

School & Safety is there to support schools and education professionals in this. With School & Safety’s Digital Safety Plan, you can work on your school safety plan: learn what the law requires and get inspiration for addressing social safety at school. How do you bring together all the documents and protocols? The Digital Safety Plan can help with that.