Enterprisingly numerate and literate problem-solving citizenship studies...
by Duncan O'Leary
The interesting thing about it seems to be that there is no predetermined answer that the young people on each project are working towards (and that the teacher knows and they don't) - because they are tackling genuine problems.
The way in which the projects are set up also mean that those involved need to develop and draw upon a whole range of skills - building relationships, working as a team, solving problems, recording and communicating findings to partners etc etc.
But perhaps the most interesting thing is that each project is very hard to categorise. Is it enterprise education? Or citizenship education? Or work-based learning? Or literacy?
...And each project is difficult to categorise because each is clearly all of these things and more.
I think this kind of project raises several questions about our current approaches to Citizenship education/enterprise education etc, which tend to be bundled up in to discrete parcels if and when we realise they're important. More to consider for our Organisational literacy project.