Voices blog

Earlier this week, the Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg claimed that the legal profession “is not doing enough” to make itself more representative of society.

(See ‘Clegg: legal profession is not doing enough on social mobility‘ on legalfutures.co.uk.)

The Citizenship Foundation has worked on developing young people’s knowledge and understanding of the law for over twenty years, with considerable input from the legal profession.

We have a tremendous amount of support from both individuals and organisations. They are committed to raising not only young people’s awareness of the law but also their aspirations towards a career in law.

Every year we engage nearly 10,000 young people in the law and legal system. They are from non-fee-paying schools, often from inner-city areas of high deprivation and from a diverse range of backgrounds.

These programmes are supported annually by a huge network of legal volunteers including over 500 solicitors, 300 barrister and advocate volunteers, 800 magistrates and 80 judges.

The work is supported generously by many bodies within the sector, including The Law Society, The Bar Council, The Magistrates’ Association, The Faculty of Advocates, Bar Library of Northern Ireland, Her Majesty’s Courts and Tribunals Service and over 30 law firms and in-house legal teams.

While diversity within the profession is a significant issue, it is important to recognise just how much the profession is already doing to improve the situation.

Over the past few months, I have been interning with the legal team at the Citizenship Foundation. In November, I attended a Lawyers in Schools training session at Slaughter and May.

Here, the lawyers were given instructions on how to teach the students about the law and how to run the various activities that would help the students think more deeply about the topics. The lawyers who attended the training session all wished to devote their time to their partner school that they would be working with for the next few months.

Aside from learning about how to run the programme in the schools, the lawyers participated in one of the activities that the students would be doing in the Human Rights session. The lawyers were really involved with the activity and there was much debate over some of the issues and questions posed. The lawyers were enthusiastic and excited about the programme and were eager to volunteer their time in the schools.

I also had the opportunity to observe a Lawyers in Schools session at both The Urswick School in Hackney and Central Foundation Girls’ School in Tower Hamlets. The students were very excited to have the lawyers in their classroom and were engaged with the topics discussed. In fact, the students and the lawyers were so engaged with one particular issue that they spent the entire allotted time on one activity.

The students seemed to have learned a lot about what was being covered and were thrilled to share their beliefs on the topic. I remember one of the students at the Urswick School talked about how one should be responsible regarding the driving age. Listening in, I overheard one of the students list some of differences between the laws in the U.K. compared to the laws in the U.S.

Each of the volunteers who participated in these sessions appeared to have enjoyed their time working in the classroom. The lawyers were excited for the subsequent Lawyers in Schools sessions and getting to know their students better.

It was entertaining to watch these sessions because I liked to hear what the student’s opinions were. I also liked watching the lawyers interact with them as well. The lawyers and the students seemed as if they had learned a lot from each other and were looking forward to spending the next few months working together.

Erin is studying Business Management at Siena College in New York and has been helping us out while studying in London on a placement scheme. She has been interning at the Citizenship Foundation, helping out on the Lawyers in Schools programme, Magistrates Court Mock Trial Competition and Bar National Mock Trial Competition.

As I come to the end of a busy training period I have been reflecting on the value of employee volunteering and specifically the willingness of the lawyers that sign up for our Lawyers in Schools programme.

Over 230 volunteers have been trained so far since September 2011 on how to engage young people in discussions about the law. The training also covers how to manage potentially challenging behaviour, child protection and many other aspects of the programme.

Before I visit each firm or in-house legal team, I can’t help but wonder if the lawyers that I am about to train are participating because they want to or if they have been coerced/bribed/threatened with expulsion off the ‘good corporate citizen’ island.

Needless to say I have been delighted, enthused and inspired by the volunteers that I have trained to take part in Lawyers in Schools. They have been positively animated and earnest about going into their partner schools. A Slaughter and May volunteer commented:

‘When I was at state school I received absolutely no legal teaching whatsoever and, with hindsight I feel that this was a serious shortcoming of my education. I believe that all young people should be given the opportunity to learn about the law.’

I am really looking forward to what I know will be another successful year of Lawyers in Schools - safe in the knowledge that there are over 400 fantastic people out there doing the legal profession proud volunteering in local schools to raise young people’s awareness of the law.

Read about one volunteer’s experience of our training.

As the Curriculum Review nears its conclusion teachers and schools across the nation are being prepared for a critical shift in the formula behind the national curriculum.

The context for the new orders couldn’t be much different from the prescriptive environment when the formula was last written. A Headteacher said to me a few weeks ago “The National Curriculum is an irrelevance to us now”. This wasn’t an opted-out Academy: it was a ‘super-head’ from an Outstanding state comprehensive who recognised that Ofsted had stopped inspecting in relation to the National Curriculum, and so had shifted his priorities accordingly. He still recognised the value of teaching to the inspection, but not to the curriculum.

This indicates that both the formulation and the context of the new curriculum – in a country heading towards a deregulated school environment – will not be the same as the previous prescription. It is expected to look more like a Menu of options with some core elements; the EBacc staples, nestling within a broader dietary mix.

Such ‘staples’ would be the equivalent of the five-a-day fruit and veg that is promoted to ensure a nutritional diet. Once a school has delivered the staples, it chooses the right elements from the menu to satisfy the bias and priorities of its customers: tailoring it to a mix of the parental palate and the child’s nutritional needs.

Deregulation means that each school will be left to create the menu, to market it to parents and validate its nutritional content to Ofsted who will then award its Michelin Guide star rating.

If you’re responding to this metaphor, you’re probably one of the wealthy few who can afford to consider the value of the Michelin stars. Meanwhile – those with less ‘educated palettes’ are looking longingly into the windows of McDonalds… which of course is a massively popular ‘restaurant’, particularly in poorer areas.

McDonalds may be a triumph of marketing formula over substantive merit, but it satisfies a certain section of the population that enjoys the pacifying nature of food more than the nuanced flavours of haute cuisine. An educated palette usually coincides with a life where basic needs have been without question, leaving one to relish its subtleties and higher sensibilities.

But here the metaphor of educational content as ‘menu’ starts to be more revealing. It suggests that we are somehow educated for appreciation: and such an education may not be through teaching, but the satiation of other needs leaving space for development. Put another way, the social and emotional prepares the context for savouring the finer elements of life.

This, for me raises the spectre of the ‘doughnut school’…. Where students can’t access the elements at the core but are satiated on the fat and sugar of the outer ring! In the same way that the menu at McDonalds contains the five-a-day (if you look hard enough) it has, on the other side of the nutritional balance, more fat and sugar than is good for you. But that does keep the customer satisfied… and coming back… and in the system.

So perhaps there needs to be a shift in the metaphor? The curriculum doesn’t need a new menu but a new recipe. Something that keeps ‘broad and balanced’ within the staples and not as a result of the menu choice?

Unlike a Menu, a recipe is a set of ingredients that play off each other in order to create the most satisfying final result. In that sense – we propose that citizenship education is not just another subject – but the subject that brings sense to the rest. It engages the social and emotional into the rest of learning in that it contextualises and generates a substantive assessment of many other subjects. It also gives you the critical facts and understanding of your own context that could otherwise leave core subjects feeling abstract, particularly if other aspects of survival are absent or overwhelm you.

It’s therefore not an optional part of the menu, but an equivalent to the yeast in the dough: the thing that makes the rest rise.

Alternatively – you could say – its dose of reality is the grit in the Oyster: but that’s a whole other biological and culinary metaphor…

Victoria Honan is an in-house lawyer at Rio Tinto. Rio Tinto and Baker McKenzie have come on board the Lawyers in Schools scheme this year joining forces to deliver sessions at Sion Manning Roman Catholic School.

Earlier this month Victoria underwent a training session for the programme and kindly wrote the following about her experience:

The training was very informative and interesting. It covered what the Citizenship Foundation is about, what Lawyers in Schools is trying to achieve and how the sessions would run. The presenter made it very interactive so we were asking questions all the time and you never felt like you were asking a silly question.

Probably the most useful section was how to deal with certain behaviours in the classroom as this is the most daunting prospect. The presenter gave us loads of helpful hints and guidance for dealing with different behaviours and I think it put all our minds at ease.

The training was extremely useful as it addressed all the key concerns I had around the content of the course and how to approach the topics and the students.

I am now excited about getting started as this has been in the pipeline for a quite a number of months. Visiting the school and meeting the teacher has enhanced that excitement as it makes it very real what we are trying to achieve and the impact we will have.

My response when asked why I wanted to get involved in the scheme was and still is that whilst I was in private practice I participated in the Lawyers in Schools programme and I found it very rewarding, although utterly exhausting (one hour with a group of 15 year olds is much more tiring that one hour with a client). I was keen to get involved in a community project and this is so worthwhile as it makes a real impact on the students. If we manage to inspire just one student (even a small amount), to go to college and work hard to achieve their goals, that would be amazing.