The report, An evaluation of the post-16 citizenship pilot, said: "Sessions achieved a good balance between fun and learning." But it added that youth workers lack confidence in steering debates and that "assessment is a weakness in those visited".
Ofsted singled out Wolverhampton Clubs for Young People (WCYP) for its innovative use of video to record progress. The group ran two 7,500 citizenship projects as part of the Learning and Skills Development Agency pilot.
At Know Your Place, 30 young people redesigned a youth centre with help from GE Volunteers, while the Anti-Racism Project included a trip to Liverpool to discuss the history of the city's links with slave-trading.
Martin Stokes, chief executive of WCYP, said that while citizenship in schools may be more focused on debating, 80 per cent of the young people on the project had no contact with citizenship in a school setting. "I'm sure we could improve our debates," he added. "But we were surprised at how confidently the young people engaged in that side of things."
WCYP hopes to continue the projects if it can get the funding.
www.ofsted.gov.uk.
