Global Citizenship

June 11th, 2012

Anti-Sectarian education

nickmorgan

Comments: none Tags: Tags: sectarianism
 : Categories citizenship, expressive arts, languages, learner voice, religious and moral education, social studies, technologies

North Lanarkshire Council secondary schools have been involved in a video-making project about the hatred and bigotry associated with sectarian behaviour in Scottish society. Students from Bellshill Academy and Cardinal Newman High School worked together to make a video about this form of prejudice and hate-crime, to deliver an anti-sectarian message to young people in the same age group. A NLC news release provides background and details.

BBC Scotland reported on the launch of this video which encourages tolerance of diversity and the eradication of sectarian actions and beliefs.

Glasgow’s ‘Sense over Sectarianism‘ programme continues to work in partnership with schools and community groups to improve the lives of local citizens.

June 7th, 2012

SLF 2012 programme ‘live’ for visitors

nickmorgan

Comments: none Tags: Tags: slf2012
 : Categories citizenship, games and sport, health and wellbeing, learner voice, outdoor learning, religious and moral education, sciences, sharing practice, social studies, sustainable development

Education Scotland has published the seminar programme for the Scottish Learning Festival 2012, SLF 2012, our annual conference and exhibition for educators. The event takes place in Glasgow on Wednesday 19th and Thursday 20th September 2012, and we’ll be expecting thousands of education professionals to join us at the SECC from across Scotland, the UK and the world. Free to attend, the programme offers a wide range of keynotes, seminars and opportunities for professional dialogue. The overall theme this year is ‘Creative Learning, Creative Thinking’, and delegates will be exposed to creativity in many forms.

Global citizenship themes are well-represented among the seminars. Among the list of inclusions are sessions on educational work relating to Homophobia, Sectarianism, Games legacy, environmental projects, ‘pupil voice’, and international links. The full list of sessions, with the codes necessary for booking, is provided on the event site and also in the online interactive version.

In the Exhibition hall you’ll find many organisations involved in Scottish education, from the public, commercial and voluntary sectors. These exhibitors offer support for educators in many forms, and our team will also be running a ‘developing global citizens’ stand again this year - a chance for delegates to meet us and talk about how global citizenship is developing in Scotland.

Come and join us! We will add further updates about SLF 2012 to this blog as the dates get closer.

June 1st, 2012

Refugee Week Scotland, 18th-24th June 2012

imenzies

Comments: none Tags: Tags: action, asylum seekers, democracy, events, human rights, refugees
 : Categories africa, citizenship, commonwealth, community, curriculum areas, europe, international, social studies, sustainable development

Each year Refugee Week grows and increases in profile, making its mark on the UK’s cultural calendar. This year’s theme Spirit captures:

• Spirit of survival and the individual – the determination needed to flee persecution and rebuild your life
• Community spirit – the connections between refugees and local communities
• Scotland’s spirit – the cultural diversity of Scotland today

Refugee Week is all about having fun, broadening horizons and breaking down barriers. Every June the week long UK-wide festival of arts, cultural and educational events celebrates contributions refugees have made to the UK, and promotes understanding about why people seek sanctuary.

Click here to see the exciting programme of activities and events for 2012>>

May 30th, 2012

New online resource: ‘Ready for Emergencies?’ - available 13th June 2012

kmayer

Comments: none Tags: Tags: action, community, emergencies, events, resources, sectarianism
 : Categories citizenship, creativity, curriculum areas, health and wellbeing, sciences

Education Scotland is delighted to announce the launch of a fantastic new resource designed to support practitioners in the delivery of emergency resilience education. This exciting online resource has been designed around the principles and approaches of the Curriculum for Excellence.

The Ready for Emergencies? resource enables practitioners access to expertise and materials in each of the 6 key emergency themes outlined, by the Scottish Government’s Ready Scotland website as posing the most immediate threat to communities. The themes include severe weather, flooding, terrorism, pandemic flu, animal disease outbreak and utilities failure all of which provide real and relevant contexts for learning, encouraging an interdisciplinary approach. Each emergency theme is explained and links to the curriculum made explicit, allowing inclusion in planning at levels 1 through to 4. In addition to specific learning journeys linked to relevant to outcomes and experiences the website offers a wide range of challenges, factsheets and videos as well as related links and RSS news feeds on breaking news of emergencies.

The importance of partnership working and opportunities for recognising achievement are highlighted so that transferable skills can be developed within and across sectors.

The new website will be available nationally from June 13^th 2012 following a ministerial launch by Dr Alasdair Allan, Minister for Learning, Science and Scotland’s Languages. It can be accessed under the following link www.educationscotland.gov.uk/readyforemergencies. Portobello High School in Edinburgh will play host to the launch event and the Scottish Government Resilience Division will provide the national context within which the resource will sit.

May 30th, 2012

Ready for Emergencies - Poster Competition

kmayer

Comments: none Tags: Tags: action, competition
 : Categories citizenship, creativity, curriculum areas, social studies

Design a poster, picture, graphic that relates to one of the main themes outlined in the Ready Scotland/ Ready for Emergencies resource (eg. severe weather, flooding etc). This could be a warning sign, campaign poster or image of a recent event.

14 winning entries will be selected for inclusion in this year’s ‘Ready for Winter’ campaign calendar with a number of other prizes on offer as part of the competition.
Also every contributor will receive a free copy of the calendar.
More information on this including terms and conditions, submission address and deadline as we as topics and entry categories are contained in the following attachments: 2012_Resilience Week_ Calendar competition - terms and conditions for entries 2012-13_ Resilience Week_ Calendar Competition_Topics

The official launch of the competition will be on Wednesday, 13 June 2012 .

If you wish to pre-register for the competition please email [email protected]

May 14th, 2012

‘Youth Radiothon’ @ Pulse Radio 98.4, East Renfrewshire

kmayer

Comments: none Tags: Tags: debating, learner voice
 : Categories citizenship, creativity, learner voice

Did you ever want to be on air and run your own radio show? This is your chance: East Renfrewshire Council in conjunction with Pulse Radio 98.4 will celebrate young peoples’ engagement and voice by inviting pupils and youth clubs from the 12 to 14 June to participate in a Youth Radiothon.

Here is how you can join the event:

You will need a group of pupils or young people (maximum per group is 5) who would like to host a 45 minute radio show. Each group will be required to come up with content for their show. They could chat about things that are going on in your school, or talk about their interests and hobbies, or discuss issues that they feel strongly about. If you need any assistance compiling the content of the show Zoe Nisbet (Partnership Development Officer, East Renfrewshire council) will visit your school or organisation and talk to you before the event. We would also require the young people to come up with a short ‘play list’ of around 6 songs that would be played during their show on the Radiothon.

All schools and organisations taking part will receive a certificate for their participation in this event, as will the individual young people. There will be different categories of awards to be won for the radio shows. We will be approaching different sponsors regarding this event and are more likely to gain sponsorship if we have a diverse and wide array of participation.

If you are interested in this initiative please email Zoe Nisbet: [email protected]

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

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.

April 30th, 2012

Global Awareness and Community Showcase Event, East Renfrewshire

kmayer

Comments: none Tags: Tags: community, CPD, events, Fairtrade
 : Categories CPD, citizenship, international, sharing practice

Woodfarm High School will host this year’s global citizenship event in East Renfrewshire and invites members of their local community to see the diverse and inspirational work undertaking in schools across the local authority.

The programme includes music and dance performances as well as a variety of Fair Trade food and jewellery stalls, henna tattoos drawing and a plant sale.

Event details:

Woodfarm High School

Wednesday, 23 May

Time: 4 – 6pm