Global Citizenship

May 4th, 2012

Global Citizenship and Film

nickmorgan

Comments: none Tags:  : Categories africa, games and sport, health and wellbeing, international, languages

A few very different opportunities for teachers to reflect on how to use film viewings and film-making as a tool for supporting global citizenship education:

With a good fit to current work in schools around Games Legacy and the Olympics, the Edinburgh Filmhouse has a schools-only showing of the African film ‘Town of Runners’ on Monday 28th May. This showing has been organised by Take One Action film festival, a charity which promotes the different perspectives offered by films from developing countries. The film tells the story of two Ethiopian girls struggling to become athletes in a town which has a history of producing great distance runners, and is reviewed in the Guardian.

Take One Action is also seeking secondary schools to participate in its Young Heroes action project between June and December 2012. It’s a residential and follow-on screening project for young people aged 15-21 and their educators or youth workers, and builds their capacity to consider global issues and use film to encourage wider debate.

Thirdly, the Northern Lights project aims to create Scotland’s first ever mass participation documentary, an innovative way to build a movie about contemporary Scotland. Basically it will be composed, and edited into a final feature-length film, from videos made by people all over the country and contributed to a common pool of rich material. Read this blog post for more detail and weblinks.

May 4th, 2012

Citizenship included in SQA skills for learning, life and work framework

imenzies

Comments: none Tags: Tags: enterprise, school improvement
 : Categories citizenship, curriculum areas, international, sustainable development

SQA has developed a new framework of broad, generic skills. The Skills for Learning, Skills for Life and Skills for Work framework is derived from Building the Curriculum 4.

The framework outlines definitions of the five broad areas of generic skills that are essential for qualification development.

Dowload Skills for Learning, Skills for Life and Skills for Work Framework

The five broad areas are:

• Literacy
• Numeracy
• Health and wellbeing
• Employability, enterprise and citizenship
• Thinking skills

This new skills framework is being used in the development of qualifications that support Curriculum for Excellence. It will also assist with the design of assessment and learning and teaching methods. These skills sit alongside knowledge, understanding and subject based skills.

For more info see http://www.sqa.org.uk/sqa/45395.html

May 1st, 2012

Finland to make more time for citizenship and sustainability

imenzies

Comments: none Tags: Tags: school improvement
 : Categories citizenship, international, sustainable development

Finland, a country which is renowned for having one of the world’s best performing education systems, has developed proposals to strengthen the teaching of citizenship education and the position of environmental education and collaboration between the subjects.

It is proposed that environmental studies would be taught in year-classes 1–6 as an integrated subject comprising the areas of biology, geography, physics, chemistry and health education, including the viewpoint of sustainable development. In year-classes 7–9 of basic education, the teaching would be divided into separate subjects similarly to today.

Cross-curricular themes would be implemented in year-classes 7–9, with a reservation of 1 weekly lesson per year. This proposal aims to improve the integrity of education and to increase cooperation between subjects to give better possibilities of responding to topical educational challenges, including those of life management, teaching of good manners, democracy education, entrepreneurial education, internationality and sustainable development in teaching and to provide better opportunities for using such methods as drama in teaching.

For more information visit: http://www.minedu.fi/OPM/Julkaisut/2012/Tulevaisuuden_perusopetus.html?lang=en

May 1st, 2012

The healthy way to get to school – Travelling Green.

imenzies

Comments: none Tags: Tags: action, events
 : Categories curriculum areas, health and wellbeing, sustainable development

Travelling Green is a complete six-week programme aimed at P5 level; it comes with lesson plans and wall charts. It gives children and their parents the skills and confidence to walk to school. Walking to school is good for children’s development as well and their physical and mental health. Travelling Green has strong Health and Wellbeing Curriculum links covering topics like for example; the circulatory and respiratory systems.

For more information, see link below;

http://www.sustrans.org.uk/what-we-do/safe-routes-to-schools/whats-in-your-area/scotland/travelling-green

Recent research has shown that children who do Travelling Green are generally more physically active than children who do not. Increasing children’s daily physical activity is essential for tackling the obesity epidemic, one of the key challenges facing Scotland’s population as described in Scotland’s Chief Medical Officer’s annual report. We need to make active modes of travel children’s first choice and make physical activity an everyday habit for Scottish children.

It has been shown that active children become active adults. Physical activity has recently been made a national indicator in Scotland. Walking to school is an excellent everyday opportunity for children to get the recommended amount of physical activity which is vital for maintaining their health and wellbeing. In addition, active children do better at school. When asked children want to be more physically active and they want to travel actively to school. Travelling Green is a resource that increases children’s physical activity in small manageable steps.

The resource was popular with teachers; they gave the following feedback;

“Well thought out and children benefited from it, many changed their route and started walking together in groups”.

“Easy to use with lots of additional resources and support materials”

“Good resource, making cross-curricular links”.

The Travelling Green resources were developed in partnership by West Dunbartonshire Council and are available for free to all Scottish schools.

There are also free Travelling Green flipcharts for interactive whiteboards available from Promethean Planet (see included step by step guide). We also include a guide for the Travelling Green resources and a flyer to circulate to your schools.

To get the resources sent to your school contact;

[email protected] 0131 346 9777

May 1st, 2012

Teachers gain Professional Recognition in Global Citizenship

imenzies

Comments: none Tags: Tags: CPD, events, school improvement
 : Categories citizenship, early years, leadership, primary schools, secondary schools, sharing practice, sustainable development

Teachers from across Glasgow were awarded Professional Recognition by the General Teaching Council for Scotland in Education for Global Citizenship.

The 24 teachers were awarded their certificates at a partnership event organised by GTC Scotland, Glasgow City Council and the West of Scotland Development Education Centre (WOSDEC). The event took place at Glasgow City Chambers on 25 April.

Habib Malik, Scottish Director of Islamic Relief and the Burns Humanitarian Award winner 2010 spoke about his experience of Global Citizenship and there were short presentations by the Chief Executive of the GTC Scotland, Anthony Finn, and Maureen McKenna Executive Director of Education at Glasgow City Council.

Professional Recognition, which is managed by GTC Scotland, provides teachers with an opportunity to gain recognition for particular expertise they may have and display in their teaching. Areas recognised previously include the Scots Language and Mentoring, Sustainable Education and Enterprise. So far 758 teachers across Scotland have received this professional award, bringing considerable benefits to their own professional development but also to the learning of their pupils and of their colleagues.

For more information about the event see the GTCS website

Click here to find out more about professional recognition in global citizenship, sustainable development education and outdoor learning.