Global Citizenship

Ofsted visited 14 schools over a three-year period to evaluate how effectively they had developed pupils’ understanding of sustainability and whether education for sustainable development had any impact on improving the broader life of the school. Over three years all but one of the schools improved the overall effectiveness of their provision for sustainable development, with a wide range of positive consequences for pupils, their families, the school and wider community.

Download full report from http://www.ofsted.gov.uk/Ofsted-home/Publications-and-research/Browse-all-by/Documents-by-type/Thematic-reports/Education-for-sustainable-development-improving-schools-improving-lives

Celebrations of the 250th anniversary of the birth of poet Robert Burns took place all over Scotland last week, and kicked off the year-long programme of events for Scotland’s 2009 Homecoming festival.

The programme of events has been organised around five main themes – Burns, whisky, golf, great Scottish minds and innovations, and Scotland’s culture and heritage. The Homecoming Scotland website offers lots of information about the background to the programme and the events planned for the months ahead.

Learning and Teaching Scotland is supporting the educational dimension of Homecoming Scotland through a new website and production of resources on Scottish cultural heritage.

 Assessment is the theme for two new SCIPD group study visits being offered to Scottish education staff by Learning and Teaching Scotland. One group will visit New Zealand in March 2009, and the other will visit Manitoba in April 2009.

Both groups of professionals will investigate innovative approaches to the assessment of literacy, numeracy, and health and wellbeing in the context of Curriculum for Excellence.

Details of both professional development opportunities are available from the LTS International Education website.

The Scottish Education Awards are a celebration of good practice and innovative developments taking place in Scottish education. The awards highlight best practice in Scottish classrooms, celebrate schools, and recognise the excellent work of individuals who help young people fulfil their potential.

Nominations for the Scottish Education Awards can be made until Friday 27 February 2009. Awards will be given across 17 categories, including ‘International School’, ‘Greener Schools’ and ‘Active Citizenship’. One new category is the Homecoming Scotland Award, to tie in with Scotland’s Year of Homecoming 2009. This award will recognise how schools and young people have explored and celebrated Scotland’s great contributions to the world, including Scots who have emigrated around the world and played a part in the development and history of other countries.

The SEA 2009 website provides full details of the awards and the nomination process.

Sustainable Development Education has been a prominent feature of life in Scottish schools for years, with the Eco Schools initiative a particular success in Primary schools. Key environmental organisations and educators work together in the ‘Sustainable Development Education Liaison Group’ (SDELG) and have produced a report which summarises the position and looks to the future. “A Time of Opportunity: the current status of Sustainable Development Education in Scottish schools” is available online from Learning and Teaching Scotland’s website.

“Schools Sustainable Development Education Policies: A Guide to their Preparation” is another new resource from SDELG, which offers guidance to local authorities and schools on producing Sustainable Development policies and plans.

If you are interested in global environmental issues, there’s a new European Commission website ‘Climate Action’ offering information about how we address problems such as Climate Change and make sustainable energy choices.

Scottish schools, pupils and teachers celebrated their achievements at the ‘Scottish Education Awards’ event in Glasgow last week. This annual awards programme recognises excellence in many categories of school life, and the judges saw a great deal of innovative and impressive work. I’ll pick out just a few of the winners which are relevant to this blog:

St Ninian’s High School in Bishopbriggs (East Dunbartonshire) won the ‘International Schools Award’ category;

Three Primary schools in North Lanarkshire jointly won the ‘Active Citizenship Award’ – St Helen’s primary, Condorrat primary, and Baird Memorial primary.

And Shawlands Academy (Glasgow) won the ‘Greener Schools Award’.

The full list of winners will appear on the Awards website shortly. Congratulations to all that participated.

Last year LTS ran very successful SCIPD Group Study visits to Ontario (on the theme of School Leadership) and Santa Cruz, California (on Mentoring of teachers). The Scottish Continuing International Professional Development programme supports international learning experiences for Scottish school education staff.

We have organised new visits to both centres, on the same themes, for the week beginning Monday 13th October 2008. Full details and the specific application forms are on our International Education website ’study visits’ pages.

The Scottish Parliament debated International Education on Thursday 24th April 2008. An ‘official report’ record is now available.The debate was shown live on Holyrood TV, and you can watch the video on the Holyrood TV website ‘film archive’ area.

The Scottish Parliament is to hold a conference on 9th May (Europe Day) at which fifth and sixth year school students from across Scotland will set out their views to MSPs on the issues they think should be ranked as International Development priorities.

We’re halfway through the annual Fairtrade celebration, which promotes trade structures and practices that will support sustainable development and a fairer financial return for producers. The Fairtrade Foundation website offers resources to support educational work which raises issues and encourages critical thinking.

Many Scottish schools will be running special activities, working on their own initiative or with charities such as SCIAF. If you do something special, let us know; we may be able to feature it on the LTS International website.