Global Citizenship

May 3rd, 2013

Game On Scotland education programme

nickmorgan

Comments: none Tags: Tags: CG2014, Glasgow 2014
 : Categories commonwealth, curriculum areas, expressive arts, games and sport, health and wellbeing, international, social studies

Game On Scotland, the official education programme for the Glasgow 2014 Commonwealth Games, launched this week with the first of many fresh activities for the months ahead. The programme is a partnership to ensure that learners benefit from the connections made possible by Glasgow hosting the Games, with partners including CG2014 organisers, Education Scotland, Glasgow City Council, and Scottish Government.

Organisers, funders, Ministers, school pupils and teachers gathered at Kelvingrove Art Gallery to kick-off an art competition which asks pupils to create posters to decorate the rooms in the new Athletes’ Village. The competition will engage the creative skills and imagination of young people, and generate wonderful artwork and designs for the visiting sportsmen and sportswomen to enjoy. Schools should register on the website to take part. News pieces from Glasgow City Council and the CG2014 Legacy team cover this initiative, and the ‘Evening Times’ article ‘Top tips as pupils bid for Games art honour’ gave it local newspaper attention.

The brand-new Game On Scotland education website provides essential information about the CG2014 Games and the nations and territories of the Commonwealth. It offers teachers a variety of resources and suggestions for actitivities to engage young learners through the curriculum. A Calendar assists teachers to plan work to link in with key developments. Its image and video library will grow as the start of the Games in July 2014 gets closer, and there will be further competitions and challenges to get young people involved. Schools can register and see their own goals included on the site’s interactive map.

School visits by official mascot ‘Clyde’ are already very popular, and the first closing date in the Mascot visit competition is very soon. Grab the opportunity to be among the lucky schools!

April 10th, 2013

Send My Friend to School campaign

nickmorgan

Comments: none Tags: Tags: primary education
 : Categories citizenship, health and wellbeing, international, social studies

Many Scottish schools already take part in the annual ‘Send My Friend to School’ campaign, part of a global effort to increase the availability of education in the developing world by lobbying world leaders and politicians to take action.

One of the UN Millennium Development Goals adopted by world nations is make primary education available to all children by 2015, recognising this right as being fundamental to development. But the reality is that many millions of children are missing out on an education, and that many more teachers are needed. The 2013 campaign focuses on those missing teachers. It aims to persuade governments to follow through on commitments to provide targeted aid and increase the number of children receiving a quality education.

The ‘Send My Friend to School’ organisation produces resources to help teachers support this campaign and raise key underlying issues with their students. There are Teacher guides, web resources, presentation slides, print materials and stickers, and suggestions for activities that will engage students. A DVD with video clips comes as part of the schools pack. Teachers can register on the site to request a copy of the pack in the post, and to get updates on campaign progress.

April 5th, 2013

Regional events – presentations now available for download

imenzies

Comments: none Tags: Tags: CPD, events, learner voice, resources, school improvement
 : Categories biodiversity, citizenship, community, CPD, curriculum areas, early years, expressive arts, games and sport, health and wellbeing, homecoming, international, languages, leadership, learner voice, mathematics, outdoor learning, primary schools, religious and moral education, renewables and climate change, sciences, scottish culture, secondary schools, sharing practice, social studies, sustainable development, technologies, waste

Thank you to all those who took part in Education Scotland’s regional event programme exploring children’s rights, global citizenship and outdoor learning. We hope this proved to be a valuable and worthwhile professional learning opportunity.

The majority of the presentations, handouts and videos from all three regional events (Edinburgh, Glasgow and Inverness) have now been uploaded to Glow for practitioners to access. These are available from the Developing Global Citizenship Glow Group at: http://glo.li/XtMdn9

Remember too that on-going support, advice and networking opportunities are available anytime through our professional learning communities on Glow: http://bit.ly/DGConline (global citizenship), http://bit.ly/12qxI1u (outdoor learning), http://bit.ly/10jWdgK (rights, support and wellbeing).

We hope these resources and communities are useful and provide further inspiration, ideas to support your work. Thanks once again to all those who participated (and supported the event) for your commitment and enthusiasm to these important areas of learning.

February 27th, 2013

Neil Fachie, Olympic gold medalist, talks to TES about the support and enthusiasm of his teachers

kmayer

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

In his interview with the TES Neil Fachie speaks fondly about the enthusiasm and support of his teachers who instilled a sense of curiosity and love of sport in him.

He also talks about his experience at the Paralympics in London, when he won Gold and broke the world record, something he finds hard to put into words.  He says:  “It was insane. In the velodrome it was like a rock concert – … it was like being a rock star for a couple of weeks”.

To find out more about Neil’s school days at Greenbrae Primary and Oldmachar Academy, Aberdeen, read the full TES article http://www.tes.co.uk/article.aspx?storycode=6318873

February 18th, 2013

Malawi – educational development

nickmorgan

Comments: none Tags: Tags: malawi
 : Categories africa, commonwealth, health and wellbeing, international, social studies

The links between Scotland and Malawi are long-established, with the David Livingstone bicentenary in 2013 providing a current reminder of the relationship. Malawi also continues to be the most common partner country for Scottish schools involved in international school partnerships, often supported with modest funding through programmes such as the British Council’s ‘Connecting Classrooms’.

For some years Scottish teachers and school pupils have been visiting Malawi to contribute their skills and learn from their African hosts, returning to Scotland with a greater personal understanding of what Global Citizenship means on a practical basis.

Link Community Development Scotland is one of the charities active in Malawi, working with local partners to improve the quality of education and increase access to educational opportunities, especially among young women. LCD is inviting applications for its ‘Malawi Cycle and Trek 2013′, in which a group of cyclists from the UK will ride through the country and visit school projects in July 2013. Each participant finds sponsorship from their friends, relatives, schools and communities to support LCD projects in Malawi. Scottish teachers have been keen participants in previous similar Bike Rides, and one Primary Headteacher has signed up to ride again in 2013 and described the benefits and challenges of the experience. The closing date for people to sign up is 8th March 2013. That leaves plenty of time afterwards for the training!

The Scotland Malawi Partnership holds regular networking meetings for Scots who are involved or interested in Malawi, and the next meeting of the its Schools Forum will be on 26th February in Edinburgh City Chambers.

February 7th, 2013

Scottish Learning Festival 2013 – could your school be involved?

imenzies

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

The Scottish Learning Festival 2013 will take place on Wednesday 25^th and Thursday 26^th September in the SECC, Glasgow.  The theme for SLF 2013 is Raising the bar in Scotland – transforming lives through learning.

The Global Citizenship Team would love to showcase some of the excellent work taking place in Scottish schools on the theme of children’s rights, global citizenship, pupil voice, sustainability and outdoor learning. If your school has ideas and interesting practice to share then we’d like to encourage you to propose a seminar.

SLF 2013 will support practitioners explore a wide range of practical approaches, resources and research aimed at improving achievement and attainment for all our learners in Scotland.

The Call for Participation is now open and full details of the theme along with the online submission form are available on the SLF website.

http://www.educationscotland.gov.uk/slf/aboutslf/callforparticipation.asp

If you would like to submit a proposal for consideration please do so before Friday 8^th March.

The 2013 conference programme and registration will be launched in May and will feature the sessions that have been submitted and selected for inclusion.

If you would like any further information or talk through a potential proposal then please contact the Team at globalcitizens@educationscotland.gov.uk

January 29th, 2013

Regional events – rights, citizenship and outdoor learning

imenzies

Comments: none Tags: Tags: CPD, david livingstone, democracy, events, human rights, learner voice, school improvement
 : Categories citizenship, commonwealth, curriculum areas, early years, expressive arts, games and sport, health and wellbeing, homecoming, international, languages, leadership, mathematics, primary schools, religious and moral education, sciences, scottish culture, secondary schools, sharing practice, social studies, sustainable development, technologies

Who should attend:  School leaders, local authority staff and those with a whole school responsibility for global citizenship, sustainability, children’s rights and outdoor learning

Sectors: Early Years, ASN, primary and secondary schools

When:                 

• Edinburgh (Wed 13^th March)
• Glasgow (Wed 20^th March)
• Inverness  (Mon 18th March)

Education Scotland will host three regional events in March 2013 to explore the implications of the Learning for Sustainability report and Children and Young People’s Bill

The Bill, which will be considered by the Scottish Parliament in 2013, will seek to enshrine the United Nations Convention of the Rights of the Child in Scottish legislation, thus placing statutory duties on all public sector bodies including local authorities and schools.  These events will also help schools consider how to move forward strategically in a range of related areas including children’s rights, pupil voice and participation, global citizenship, sustainability, outdoor learning and Games Legacy activities.

These events will showcase interesting practice from around the country and include input from school inspectors about the changes taking place within the policy landscape and how this might impact on schools. The events will also highlight the many inspiring moments of learning taking place in 2013/14, such as the Glasgow 2014 Commonwealth Games and Year of Natural Scotland, which provide exciting opportunities for schools to develop coherent whole school approaches.

Places will be limited and offered to local authorities on a pro-rata basis but if you’re interested in attending then please note the above dates for your diary.

These events will be free to attend. Please direct further enquiries to globalcitizens@educationscotland.gov.uk

January 25th, 2013

Global development goals – seeking the views of young people

nickmorgan

Comments: none Tags: Tags: development goals, global development, pupil voice, shape the future
 : Categories africa, citizenship, health and wellbeing, ICT, international, learner voice, religious and moral education, social studies, sustainable development

The current United Nations Millennium Development Goals, which underpin international efforts to reduce global poverty and support development in many poor nations, will come to an end in 2015. There has been great progress, and there will be more in the intervening years, but it is already clear that in some of the 8 themed areas the targets will not be met. The international community is now considering the next set of Development Goals which will follow the MDGs. A High Level Panel on the Post 2015 Development Agenda is leading this work, and Prime Minister David Cameron is one of the co-chairs of this Panel.

The Department for International Development has challenged Secondary schools acros the UK to engage pupils in the discussion about what the next set of goals should be. Its ‘Shape the Future’ competition, launched this week with the support of the Scottish Government, targets pupils from the first three years of secondary school. Each team of up to five students will discuss the issues and formulate ideas for the next goals. The team will then create a short presentation of their proposals in multimedia form. The deadline for this first stage is 28th March.

Five schools will be shortlisted for the second stage, and given mentor and workshop support to refine their proposals and prepare a final presentation. These school teams will gather in London to make their final pitches to an Expert Panel. The winning team will work with Oxfam on a special project over the subsequent months.

The challenge represents a great opportunity to get young people engaged with development issues that will change the world they will live in.

A dedicated resource pack for schools, to assist with taking part in the Shape the Future challenge, will soon be available to download from the Global Dimensions website. There are also many links to global citizenship resources and organisations from our own Education Scotland website.

An information sheet for teachers at Scottish schools is available for download and distribution.

Shape the Future schools competition – info sheet for schools (Scotland)

January 24th, 2013

Food, Hunger and Global Citizenship

nickmorgan

Comments: 1 Comment Tags: Tags: food, hunger
 : Categories africa, citizenship, health and wellbeing, international, religious and moral education, social studies

The ‘Enough Food for Everyone IF’ campaign in the UK launched this week, aiming to persuade “politicians, institutions, organisations, faith groups, private companies and individuals to reflect on their role in tackling global hunger and to take action”. If changes are made, in areas such as taxation and development aid, huge numbers of people will see improvements in their lives and health.

It is a consortium approach from a large number of UK charities, working together to highlight key issues around food, land, tax justice, trade, sustainable agriculture and much more. Partners include Christian Aid, Oxfam, SCIAF, ActionAid and many more.

The IF campaign website explains more about the issues and the activities the campaign partners will lead, and a Schools section has resources for teachers to support them in covering these global citizenship issues in the classroom. A video introduction is available on YouTube.

This campaign to reduce global hunger has the support of the UK government, and the Prime Minister makes a video statement on the Department for International Development website.

The BBC TV story “End hunger for ever campaign launched by UK aid organisations” and the Guardian story “Anti-hunger campaign ‘IF’ launches with call for G8 to act” provide background and commentary.

Some of the charities involved have also produced dedicated resources for teachers, to help bring these themes into lessons. For example, Oxfam suggests ways to engage pupils about global hunger. Christian Aid has also produced a series of assemblies and activities around the campaign

December 19th, 2012

Year of Natural Scotland 2013

imenzies

Comments: none Tags: Tags: action, events, nature
 : Categories biodiversity, community, curriculum areas, expressive arts, health and wellbeing, homecoming, languages, mathematics, outdoor learning, religious and moral education, sciences, scottish culture, social studies, sustainable development, technologies

The Year of Natural Scotland 2013 provides an opportunity to celebrate Scotland’s stunning natural beauty and biodiversity, and promote ways in which visitors can enjoy our beautiful landscapes, wildlife and heritage responsibly.

In this the third of four focus years leading up to the Year of Homecoming in 2014, there will be many exciting opportunities for schools to engage in initiatives and events to promote sustainable development education and outdoor learning within the curriculum around the eight key themes listed below.

For an early indication of what’s of offer and how your school can engage with the natural world visit: http://www.snh.gov.uk/enjoying-the-outdoors/year-of-natural-scotland-2013/

Details about other opportunities will follow early in the New Year.