Schools can strengthen communities.
We equip educational leaders with the skills and tools to build civic life, using community organising methods first tested by pioneering schools in the UK.
Our mission
Organisations that work with young people and families have a vital part to play in changing their communities and wider society.
The Citizen School grew out of work by pioneering schools that used community organising to sharpen their sense of purpose and widen their impact.
Training
Practical development for educational leaders who want to embed community-strengthening practice.
Research
Essays and case studies that test the approach and record what works.
Consultancy
Support for organisations as they build relationships with families, staff and neighbours.
Research and publications
Reports, collections and practical guides.
- Collection
Hungry for Change
Projects showing how Citizens UK works from the ground up on poverty, housing and the inequalities that shape young people’s education.
- Collection
Education – Power – Change
Essays arguing that schools need real power, and that training in community organising gives them the means to challenge inequality and injustice.
- Report, France
École de la démocratie
A report from colleagues in France on a project we supported in its early days, as we shared practice and learning across the Channel.
- Collection
Schools in their communities
Written after the Covid-19 crisis, a call to return to the holistic purpose of education and to build strong relationships between schools and communities.
- Collection
Engaging citizens to secure our democracy
On falling turnout and why politics should be about people power, not only voting every few years.
- Report, IPPR
Citizen Schools
Makes the case that schools can build a democratic culture as civic institutions, and that doing so can lift academic results too.
Work with us
To talk about training, research or support for your school or college, write to us.
sebchapleau@citizenschool.org.uk