The creation of this course was funded through a grant from the Pears #iwill Fund. It was designed to be used by teachers working in England, and so if you're accessing this from elsewhere - welcome! - but remember you may need to tweak a few of the references to English policies and procedures to make them relevant to your own situation.

The objectives of this training are to:

• Introduce teachers to the concept of facilitating social action in primary schools
• Explore the triple benefit of social action: to the child, to the school, to the community.
• Explore different types of social action.
• Explore what makes an effective social action project for primary school aged children.
• Share good practice examples of social action taking place in primary schools.
• Introduce the Young Citizens Make a Difference Challenge programme as a framework for primary school social action.

Course Structure:

Lecture 1: What is social action?

Lecture 2: Who benefits from social action projects running in primary schools?

Lecture 3: What makes an effective social action project? Sharing good practice.

Lecture 4: A structure for your social action projects: Young Citizens Make a Difference Challenge.

Lecture 5: Test what you've learnt.

Lecture 6: What will do you with your learning?

How to get the best from this training course:

Using the materials

The materials on this course are designed to lead you to key learning points about what social action is, and the value of running such projects with primary aged children. This is done through a mixture of text to read and digest, answering questions about video clips, completing quizzes and watching presentations. There are also handouts on key points and copies of presentations which you can download and use later.

Moving through the course

You will find that you HAVE to complete a lecture before going on to the next one - so if you're trying to progress through the lectures and the 'complete and continue' button isn't there at the top of the page it's because there's a part in the current lecture (usually a video!) that you haven't completed. It is entirely possible to complete each section of the course more than once, so do revisit as you need to.

Gaining a certificate

This course is certified by the CPD Standards Office and so, if you complete the whole course and gain 100% in the final quiz, you will be able to download a certificate recognised as one hour's continuing professional development.

Length of time needed

It should take you around 1 hour to complete all sections of this course. However, you don't need to do it all in one sitting - if you want to go and get lunch, or have to stop to teach a class - or go to bed! - then don't worry, the course will recognise where you got up to when you sign in again.

If you enjoy this Young Citizens training course

Why not visit our website for other free resources designed for busy teachers, including our popular drop down day Make a Difference in a Day and our Primary Resources (formerly called Go-Givers).

Keeping in touch

We're here to help.

Email [email protected] at any time and we'll do our best to give you a hand.

Good luck - and enjoy!