CSPE CBA: a guide to your Citizenship Action Record

For the NCCA Junior Cycle CSPE short course, the Classroom-Based Assessment is the Citizenship Action Record. Students undertake at least three citizenship actions across the course’s three strands and make a record of one for assessment. It can be completed in second or third year. Curriculum Online sets out those requirements and the available presentation formats.

A useful starting question is: what will I actually do? Learning about an issue gives you a basis for action. Your record then needs to explain your involvement and learning, rather than becoming a collection of facts about the topic.

Imagine you want safer access to your school. That gives you several possible actions: raise a specific concern through the student council, ask the responsible body a checked question, or organise a teacher-approved discussion that leads to a proposal. Pick the option you can carry out with the time and permissions available.

Compare two possibilities before deciding. Who could usefully hear from you? What could you contribute? What would count as evidence that you took part? A request about one crossing or one activity is easier to explain and evaluate than a promise to solve road safety everywhere.

DáilDex’s CSPE CBA hub has 12 starting ideas across Rights and responsibilities, Global citizenship, and Exploring democracy. Adapt an idea to your school and agree its course connection with your teacher.

Keep the source beside the claim it supports. Note the title, author or organisation, URL and date checked. Add a limitation: a national figure may not describe your school, while a politician’s statement records their position rather than proving that a policy worked.

Check who has responsibility before sending a request. A councillor, TD, school principal and national agency do different jobs. If you are using a Dáil vote, read the question and stage. A vote on an amendment does not automatically tell you what a TD thinks about every part of the policy.

Reading a Bill or comparing records can be useful research. Agree what you will do with it: explain a checked finding to classmates, gather their questions, make a proposal or contribute through an appropriate school process.

The NCCA assessment guidance envisages approximately 6–8 class hours for preparing and completing the CBA. Your school sets the timetable. Work back from the deadline your teacher gives you and allow time to reflect and present, as well as to organise the action.

The free DáilDex planner gives you six places to keep your thinking: choose, research, plan, act, reflect and present. Each stage asks questions rather than filling in an answer for you. Include tasks, your own role, dates, permissions and a backup if the first plan cannot happen.

You do not need a DáilDex account. Download your notes as text to work offline, or save an editable copy and reopen it in the planner for another lesson. Entries are not saved automatically, so keep your copy before leaving the page.

Give each useful item a short reference, such as E1 or E2. Record its date, what it shows and where the original is kept. Your own question plan, a dated request, an event outline or a revised task list may explain your contribution more clearly than a large collection of uncaptioned photographs.

For a group action, distinguish the shared activity from your own work. What did you prepare? Which decision did you help make? What did you change after feedback? The official guidance allows group actions but requires an individual record focused on each student’s role and contribution.

Use school-approved channels and storage. Check permission before taking photos, recording someone or gathering survey responses, and avoid including personal information that your account does not need.

Start with a particular moment. Perhaps a source contradicted your assumption, a discussion exposed a view you had missed, or a response showed that you had contacted the wrong organisation. Explain what you thought before, what happened and what you understand now.

Connect a skill to a task. If you helped lead a discussion, think about how you prepared questions or made room for people who had not spoken. If you compared sources, explain how you checked whether they were measuring the same thing. Naming communication or research as a skill is only the beginning of that explanation.

Consider a limit too. What remains uncertain? Whose experience did you not hear? What would you do differently next time? Our reflection guide gives you questions to examine your experience, without supplying a personal account to copy.

Record what happened honestly. If you sent a question through the school and received no reply before your deadline, note the date and channel, then discuss a reasonable follow-up with your teacher. Do not invent a response or claim to know why someone did not answer.

Compare the result with your original aim. A changed plan can give you something specific to examine: a constraint you discovered, a decision you made and what you learned about participation. Explain the evidence you have and the conclusion it can support.

Dex can help you understand a term, explore a civic question or find a route into the record. Ask something specific, such as the difference between a TD and a councillor, or what Second Stage means. Open the linked official source and check it before using the information in your work.

You can also ask for questions that help you think: which part of my plan needs evidence, what perspective have I missed, or what does this source actually establish? Describe only the non-personal information needed for the question. Keep your action, judgements and final account your own, following your school’s rules on AI use.

DáilDex accounts are for people aged 16 and over. If you are younger, use the public planner, workbook and guides without signing up, and ask your teacher about using Dex with the class. The materials work without an AI conversation.

The printable workbook follows the same six stages as the planner, with questions and writing space. Print it, use your browser to save it as a PDF, or download the blank text version to open in a word processor. Use whichever format works for you and fits your teacher’s instructions.

For teachers, the hub includes classroom notes, a review checklist and the source and evidence sheets. Agree the learning outcomes, scope and accessible ways to participate before students begin. The pack is a planning support, not an official submission form or a predicted assessment result.

Ask whether someone unfamiliar with the activity could follow what you did and what you learned. Select evidence that supports the account, credit the sources you used and check that your own contribution is clear. Agree the final format with your teacher.

The official Features of Quality cover engagement, reflection and presentation. A tidy layout helps the reader, but the substance comes from your action and thinking. Bring questions about assessment to your teacher and use the current guidance alongside the school’s brief.