The John Roan School: the first of 17 to confirm their Pathway participants

The John Roan School, Greenwich, have become the first school on the Citizen Schools Pathway programme to get all their stakeholders signed up. That includes a senior leader, subject leader, governor, two parents and two students - who have all met with me individually, and almost all met each other, after we had the first group meeting today at the school.

Citizenship is really moving forward at the school, with Citizen Schools Pathway adding strategic power and capacity to the mix. Des Malone, former Deputy Head at Deptford Green, and now the successful head of John Roan, has prioritised its development - and with a strong specialist Department led by Rahima Choudhury and line managed by deputy head Jan Farmer - who also oversees the school's community engagement - the scene is set for the Citizen Schools programme to take active citizenship across the whole school to the next level.

Added to that team is Carl Parsons, school governor and Professor of Education at Canterbury Christ Church University, two parents - Sam Binns and David Davis - who have put themselves forward to take part, plus Ramandeep Pawar and Jamie Galloway - two year 8 students who are already walking the talk of politics in action: they've lined up a meeting with none other than Gordon Brown, Prime Minister, at Number 10, on Friday!

John Roan are also the first school to confirm their full quota of attendees for the Citizen Schools launch - so everyone will be there on Thursday 9th, to meet other schools and participants, find out more about the programme, and get a real sense of the power of citizenship education in action.