Global Citizenship

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 7th, 2012

European football

nickmorgan

Comments: none Tags: Tags: euro2012, football
 : Categories europe, games and sport, health and wellbeing, international

The Euro 2012 football competition final rounds start in Poland and Ukraine tomorrow, and offer great opportunities for some more learning about global citizenship. Teams of players from many European nations (sadly not Scotland) and thousands of back-up staff and supporters will enjoy two weeks of top class sport. Details of the fixtures schedule, and coverage of the competition are on the BBC website among others.

Thousands of school pupils will have the additional benefit of learning new things in areas such as sport, health, Europe, travel, countries and languages - but also in less obvious areas such as literacy skills. An article in The Guardian describes how students can be inspired to read more. Teachers could also initiate lessons about media coverage and bias.

For themes around global citizenship, there are interesting discussions to be had about the environmental impact of thousands of people travelling from their homes to Eastern Europe, the issue of diversity and possible racism and violence at the venues, and the labour issues around production of balls and strips. One example: a teaching resource about football, fair trade and literacy.

Enjoy the games!

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 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 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

April 26th, 2012

Scottish Biodiversity Week 19th - 27th May 2012

imenzies

Comments: none Tags: Tags: action, events
 : Categories biodiversity, curriculum areas, expressive arts, health and wellbeing, sciences, scottish culture, sustainable development

Scotland’s precious wildlife and landscapes are vitally important and Scottish Natural Heritage (SNH) want to offer you the chance to get out and about and experience them!

SNH have teamed up with a range of other people to bring you a wide variety of organised and fun events during Scottish Biodiversity Week.

Every year there is an astonishing range of events on offer. Here are just a few examples of the kinds of things that you can do:

• Countryside ranger led pond dipping events for little children;
• Guided walks on Scottish Natural Heritage National Nature Reserves;
• Story telling events;
• Seashore safaris;
• Fossil finding tours
• Expert talks on nature;
• Nature photography workshops.

Visit SNH’s Events Diary to find out what’s on - http://www.snh.gov.uk/protecting-scotlands-nature/safeguarding-biodiversity/events/

April 19th, 2012

School Open day - Stockbridge Primary School, City of Edinburgh

imenzies

Comments: none Tags: Tags: community, CPD, europe, school improvement
 : Categories CPD, citizenship, curriculum areas, expressive arts, health and wellbeing, international, languages, mathematics, primary schools, religious and moral education, sciences, sharing practice, social studies, technologies

School Open Day – Stockbridge Primary School, City of Edinburgh Council

Main focus: developing a strong pupil voice & partnership working with the local and international community

Thursday, 17 May 2012, 9.15 am – 3 pm (tbc)

The highly successful programme of Developing Global Citizens study visits to schools around the country continues with Stockbridge Primary School.

Stockbridge Primary School has worked hard to embed global citizenship themes at the heart of the curriculum. This work has involved the establishment of systems which promote pupil voice and meaningful partnerships with pupils, parents, the local community and international partners.

A focus of the event will be to identify and share the practical lessons and ideas that have helped the school move forward in its journey, and also to reflect on the challenges encountered along the way. Time will also be set aside for some professional dialogue and exchange of ideas.

To book, please email: [email protected] or Phone 0141 282 5172. Places are limited so please book early to avoid disappointment. This is a free event!

April 19th, 2012

School Open Day - Kinnaird Primary School, Falkirk Council

imenzies

Comments: none Tags: Tags: CPD, democracy, enterprise, europe, events, Fairtrade, learner voice, school improvement
 : Categories CPD, citizenship, curriculum areas, europe, expressive arts, health and wellbeing, international, languages, leadership, learner voice, mathematics, primary schools, religious and moral education, sciences, sharing practice, social studies, sustainable development, technologies

School open day - Wed 23rd May 2012

Since opening in August 2007, Kinnaird Primary School has demonstrated a strong commitment to Global Citizenship. It was the first school in Falkirk to achieve Fairtrade status, has achieved two ECO Schools green flags, Falkirk Council’s International Education Awards (Stage 2) and the British Council Intermediate Level Developing Internationalism Award, in addition to Falkirk Council’s Platinum Level Enterprise Education Award.

Download programme for open day>>

Programme

9.30 Registration and Coffee

9.45 Welcome and introduction by Pamela Adamson, Headteacher

10.00 Tour of school

Participants given tour of school by pupils/staff in small groups, including visits to classes

11.00 Coffee break

11.30 Presentation about the school’s journey (Pamela Adamson and pupils)

12.00 Informal question and answer session

12.30 Lunch

13.15 Presentation by Megan Farr, Policy Officer, outlining the work Falkirk Council Education Services do to support and promote Global Citizenship in schools

13.30 Reflection and professional dialogue

Participants exchange ideas and reflect on personal experience in the light of the visit

14.45 Close

If you wish to register for this Open Day, please contact Megan Farr on 01324 506671 or [email protected]

March 29th, 2012

Europe and inter-generational solidarity

nickmorgan

Comments: none Tags:  : Categories ICT, creativity, europe, expressive arts, health and wellbeing, international, technologies

2012 is the European Year of Active Ageing and Solidarity between Generations, and celebrates the contribution that older people make to life and society. One aspect of this theme is the quality of the relationship and interaction between the different generations in society, and among the initiatives addressing this theme are two which will interest teachers.

The European People’s Party has launched a Film competition for young people in the European Union aged under 30 years old. It invites them to create a film on the theme of ‘Solidarity between generations’, to last just one minute - short and focused. The rules and application process are online, and the closing date is 15th May.

Another opportunity for Schools is the Life Story Challenge, run by the new generations@school project. This competition asks young European citizens to work with older people to collect stories about people’s lives, and then share these through the project website using text, images, audio and video. There is a particular emphasis on gathering material through activities around 29th April, the European Day of Inter-generational Solidarity, but uploads can be made until 30th June.

Such competitions offer a chance for students to demonstrate their creativity, film-making and communication skills, and some understanding of inter-generational issues.

March 22nd, 2012

School Open Day at Bo’ness Academy

imenzies

Comments: none Tags: Tags: CPD, europe, events, modern languages, school improvement
 : Categories CPD, china, commonwealth, curriculum areas, europe, expressive arts, health and wellbeing, international, languages, mathematics, religious and moral education, sciences, secondary schools, sharing practice, social studies, technologies

School open day - using international education to develop a whole school approach to global citizenship

Venue: Bo’ness Academy, Falkirk

9:30am – 3.00pm

Thursday 17th May 2012

Note: this event was due to place at an earlier date in the year but has now been rescheduled for the date above.

Theme: International Education

This CPD event offers practitioners and school leaders an exciting opportunity to visit Bo’ness Academy and attend Falkirk Council’s Global Citizenship Showcase Event.

Bo’ness Academy is an inspiring example of a school that has used international education as a vehicle to engage the whole school in global citizenship activities. Through the Comenius Programme and other well established links the school has developed a rich international programme connecting it to countries across the world including: The Gambia, The Netherlands, China, France, Germany and The Czech Republic.

A focus of the event will be to identify and share the practical lessons and ideas that have helped the school move forward on its journey including:

• Making global citizenship a key priority in the school and a focus for the implementation of Curriculum for Excellence
• Using international links to explore important issues in a global context and to create engaging, meaningful and challenging learning experiences
• Developing strong international partnerships which can be sustained and which have made an impact on every learner.

Participants will have the opportunity to meet and talk with the Head Teacher, International Coordinator, staff and learners and also tour the classrooms and school. Time will also be set aside for participants to reflect and share their own experiences.

Download Programme for Bo’ness Academy Open Day 17May12

How to book

To book, please contact Megan Farr, Policy Officer, Falkirk Council. Email: [email protected] or Tel. 01324 506671.

Places for the open day section of the event are limited so please book early to avoid disappointment. This is a free event!