Using Civics & Citizenship processes and models across your site can be a powerful way to shape students’ views of democracy.  The needs of each site will be different, but here are some ideas to begin embedding a democratic culture and student agency across school sites.

SRC

Elevate your school’s Student Representative Council processes.

  • Conduct preferential vote processes to elect SRC representatives.
    • Students running for a place on SRC can put forward policy platforms.
    • All students can “enrol” to vote.  The school can have eligibility criteria (e.g. must be a student at the school, must be in years 7-12, must not be a teacher) and can develop a school electoral roll.
    • Borrow real electoral equipment from the AEC or ECSA to run an election.
    • Year 5 or year 8 students not running for election can take part in a school “Electoral Commission” – empower them to count votes and report results (these year levels are based on Australian Curriculum links to elections).
  • Have SRC students represent electorates.
    • Create electorates around your site e.g. the “Reception” electorate, the “Seniors” electorate.
    • Get students to profile the electorate – give the electorate a name, identify the needs of the community.
    • During homegroup, pastoral care, circle time (or equivalents), allow for “street corner meetings” for SRC reps to work with their constituents.
  • Let SRC representatives develop expertise and take on Ministerial portfolios.
    • Students remain the representative for their electorate/class, but they can also be responsible for driving issues in a portfolio area – e.g. Minister for School Technology, Minister for School Environment (yard clean up), Minister for Sports and Recreation, Minister for Library Collections.
    • Run school question time sessions where students can ask what is happening in the portfolio areas.
  • Run SRC meetings like a Parliament.
    • Have the students vote amongst themselves to appoint a “Speaker” to chair the meetings.
    • Treat the SRC like a “lower house” of Parliament, and leadership as an “upper house” of Parliament.  Decisions made by the lower house need to be sent to the upper house to be passed.
    • Create a Governor – the Principal, or Governing Council – who provides Royal Assent to a decision passed by both Houses.
  • Create and publicise sitting calendars for the SRC. Create a “Notice Paper” (agenda) to circulate.
  • Get some students to be Hansard reporters who publish minutes of the SRC meetings to send around to the student body.

School Separation of Powers

If the SRC model is effective, you can expand upon the concept by having non-SRC reps take on other roles in the school governance. Split your school into a Separation of Powers.

  • Legislature/Parliament: SRC/Leadership.
  • Executive: Remaining student body – they help action the “laws” made by the Parliament.  For example, if the SRC implements a yard clean-up day, nominate students to be the public service who promote this event and put it into practice.  Get these students to come up with timing, the posters, the areas to be cleaned etc.
  • Judiciary: Nominate selected students and teachers to be a group to interpret the law.

School Parliaments

If running SRC like a Parliament is not a practical option for your site, another option is to turn classes into different Houses of Parliament.  For example, if you have four year 7 classes at your site:

  • Class 1: Lower House to class 2
  • Class 2: Upper House to class 1
  • Class 3: Lower House to class 4
  • Class 4: Upper House to class 3

Pass Bills between each House of Parliament and have the classes scrutinise each other. 

This can also extend across year levels for smaller sites. For example:

  • Year 5 class: Lower House to year 6 class
  • Year 6 class: Upper House to year 5 class.

Designate a lesson (a sitting calendar) where each class is in “sitting” and students present their speeches, pass laws to and from each other, and have question time.

Committees

Parliamentary Committees conduct inquiries to gather information about a topic and prepare a report back to the Parliament.  Using a model of a committee inquiry process is a great way to embed a Civics & Citizenship process into learning across multiple subject areas.

We offer free professional learning about running a subject like a committee inquiry (get in touch), but here is a brief overview:

1. Nominate your topic and how long will you run it for. e.g. Library book purchases – 4 weeks, Youth perceptions on Australian Democracy – 6 weeks.

2. Allocate roles:

  • Committee secretary – teacher, or one student.  Coordinates the meeting times, prepares runsheets for witnesses, makes the meeting agendas.
  • Hansard – 2-3 students.  Transcribes the meetings and makes the minutes available.
  • Committee research officers – 2-3 students.  Collate the submissions and witness statements to turn into a report.
  • Presiding Member – 1 student.  Chairs the meeting, calls on each witness.
  • Members of the Committee – 5-6 students.  Determine the questions to be asked when calling for submissions.  Determine questions for the witnesses.
  • Expert witnesses – 5-6 students.  Become specialists on the topic to appear before the Committee and be questioned.
  • Public submitters – remaining students. Write in responses to the committee, and attend public hearings.

3. Create the terms of reference – what are the specific questions you want answers to?

4. Call for public submissions – make posters and put around the school. See example call for submissions with terms of reference.

5. Hold hearings to interview people who submitted, or to call in expert witnesses.

6. Conduct any site visits to gather information.

7.Write the report and send it to the Minister (or Principal).

8.Monitor for any outcomes.

Contact us for free PL on running a class like a Committee

AC links for Committees:

Year 6: The key institutions of Australia’s system of government, how it is based on the Westminster system, and the key values and beliefs of Western democracies (AC9HS6K06)

  • exploring how bills are debated and scrutinised; for example, the role of parliamentary committees and the ability of citizens to make submissions to these committees

Year 7: The characteristics of Australia’s democracy, including freedom of speech, association, assembly, religion and movement (AC9HC7K02)

  • comparing the effectiveness of different ways of participating in Australia’s democracy, including voting, standing for parliament, contributing to committees of inquiry, organising petitions or social media campaigns, and protesting

Cross-Curricular Opportunities

While Civics and Citizenship is in the HASS Learning Area, everyone has responsibilities as a citizen and resident.  Including Civics and Citizenship across all subject areas is a powerful way to reinforce learning and highlight the significance of participation.

  • Start each unit of work (where possible) working out which level of government is responsible for it:
    • Maths – units of measurement – “weights and measures” is a federal responsibility
    • Maths – statistics – collation of Australia’s statistics is a federal responsibility
    • Science – energy – state responsibility
    • Drama – arts – state responsibility
  • Use Civics and Citizenship processes within lessons for other subject areas
    • Maths – conduct a vote using proportional representation and then use the quota formula
    • English – persuasive texts for politics
    • Drama – role play a court hearing or passage of a Bill
    • Art – reflect on our multicultural society through art
    • Science – vote on the next practical lesson using preferential voting

We recommend our Tips for Teaching Civics & Citizenship PL session to start thinking about more cross-curricular ideas.