Global Citizenship

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!

February 9th, 2012

Falkirk Council DGC Showcase and open day at Bo’ness Academy

imenzies

Comments: none Tags: Tags: CPD, europe, events, modern languages, school improvement
 : Categories CPD, Uncategorized, china, citizenship, curriculum areas, early years, europe, expressive arts, health and wellbeing, international, languages, leadership, mathematics, modern languages, primary schools, religious and moral education, sciences, secondary schools, sharing practice, social studies, sustainable development, technologies

Falkirk Council global citizenship showcase and school open day

Venue: Bo’ness Academy, Falkirk

9:30am – 3.00pm

This event will now take place on Thursday 17th May 2012

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.

Following the open day event, participants will also have the opportunity to attend Falkirk Council’s Global Citizenship Showcase event which will also be taking place in Bo’ness Academy from 4pm – 6pm. This will feature exhibitions and displays from leading organisations such as Eco-Schools Scotland and the British Council and will showcase innovative global citizenship practice from many Falkirk schools.

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!

Download programme for Bo’ness Academy Open Day >>

September 28th, 2011

British Council supports international school partnerships

kmayer

Comments: none Tags: Tags: europe, funding, modern languages, resources
 : Categories CPD, africa, china, citizenship, europe, india, international, modern languages

British Council supports schools in Scotland to make connections in Europe and globally and provide a wide variety of opportunities including accreditation and grants for CPD, exchange visits, work placements abroad and joint curriculum project work with partner schools.

The following up-coming opportunities and deadlines are opened to any school in Scotland in order to develop new and existing global connections:

Connecting Classrooms: Project with schools in the Middle East– Jordan, Lebanon, Oman, Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates. Deadline: 21 October

Schools with existing China school partnerships can also apply on 21 October to receive funding to develop joint curriculum work and involve students in partner visits.

For more information visit: www.britishcouncil.org/connectingclassrooms

£250 is available for staff costs, travel and subsistence to explore the idea of long term equitable partnerships with schools in Africa, Asia, Latin America and the Caribbean.

Reciprocal Visit Grants (for partnerships with Africa, Asia, Latin America and the Caribbean): 1 November- 9 January (deadline)

For more information: www.dfid.org.uk/globalschools

ETwinning and Comenius: These projects can help schools to start new partnerships projects with European partners. In-Service Training on professional development courses or job shadowing and to host Comenius Assistants in 2012. under: www.britishcouncil.org/comenius or www.etwinning.net

Online resource including partner finding and accreditation to receive recognition for schools’ global citizenship and international work is also available through www.britishcouncil.org/schoolsonline.

May 9th, 2011

Europe Day 2011

nickmorgan

Comments: 1 Comment Tags: Tags: europe, modern languages
 : Categories europe, international, modern languages

Today is Europe Day, the annual date for celebration of the existence and activities of the European Union. Many Scottish schools work throughout the year to support student learning about Europe, taking part in initiatives such as the primary school Euroquiz

This is also the month of ‘Comenius Week’, when schools celebrate the successes of intercultural dialogue achieved through the EU’s Comenius partnerships programmes. Scotland has benefitted from many Comenius school partnerships, with both bilateral and multilateral school projects, and the newer Regio programme has enabled partnership working at local authority level too.

All the major European organisations offer support to teachers who want to include a stronger European dimension to their work in schools. Three examples: the annual European Day of Languages (26th September) initiated by the Council of Europe; the education resources such as ‘Crisis Point’ produced by the European Parliament offices; and the resources such as ‘Passport to the EU’ created by the European Commission.

On this 9th May, a BBC News web story focuses on poor language skills among British people and the impact of this on their ability to win jobs with European institutions.

April 8th, 2011

Europe and modern languages

nickmorgan

Comments: none Tags: Tags: europe, modern languages
 : Categories ICT, europe, modern languages

Congratulations to the two students from Kings Park secondary school in Glasgow who won this year’s ‘Talk your way to Brussels’ speaking competition. This annual event is organised by the Scottish European Educational Trust (SEET), and sponsored by IBM, and requires young Scots to demonstrate their ability with a foreign language.

Mark Pentleton of Radio Lingua supported the competition by training the student teams in how to make a video diary of their time at the finals in Brussels, providing participants with a download of the company’s web based language courses, and offering ipods for the winners. The finalists produced a promo video about their visit to the European Parliament with MEP David Martin.

February 15th, 2011

Europe and modern languages

nickmorgan

Comments: none Tags: Tags: modern languages
 : Categories europe, international, modern languages

Lots of evidence this week that Scottish school students often develop high level skills with foreign languages and use those skills as modern young citizens of Europe.

The annual secondary schools speaking competition run by the Scottish European Educational Trust has completed its regional heats and reached the last stage. It requires that participants speak on the themes of why learning a European language should matter to young people, and how language learning could be made more enjoyable. Their summing up and vote of thanks must be in a different European language. Students from five Scottish high schools will be travelling to Brussels in March to compete in the Finals at Scotland House, and will also visit the European Parliament. King’s Park Secondary, St Thomas of Aquins High School, St Margaret’s (Aberdeen), Douglas Academy and Sandwick Junior High School are the finalists.

The European Commission runs a Young Translators contest each year, with a winner in each member state. In 2011 the winning UK student is from a Scottish school, Morrison’s Academy in Crieff, Perthshire.

And finally, a group of Scottish secondary students has just returned from participating in Euroscola, a European Commission initiative which encourages collaboration among young people from across the EU. They meet in Strasbourg and discuss real issues of the day, such as the environment, using their language skills to communicate views and summarise positions with clarity. A TESS piece ‘Scots find political feet on international stage’ reports on the latest round of Euroscola, and the Euroscola Online blog describes the 2011 Scottish experience.