Local 4 Global

Overview of being a global school

Clanfield CE Primary School is a small Church of England primary school located in the heart of a beautiful Oxfordshire village. Its current roll of 82 is made up of approximately 60% children from the village and 40% from the surrounding villages and small towns. The village catchment is generally, but by no means exclusively, middle class and almost entirely of white British origin. Most of the parents are supportive of the school and their children's education; this support is reflected in the village community as a whole with whom strong links are carefully maintained.

The school is organised into 3 mixed age classes with a stable and experienced staff team. I have been in post as Headteacher for 10 years. My teaching team includes 2.9 class teachers with a 2.0 FTE teacher to provide PPA support. There are 5 excellent TAs who provide a wide range of support throughout the school.

I believe that the most important learner in our classrooms is the teacher and this, for me, has always been one of the most exciting aspects of the job. In a small school such as ours it would be relatively simple to slip into cosy and familiar routines and still achieve acceptable outcomes. Fortunately this has never been an option for us as we all enjoy extending our experience and expertise despite the extra work and challenge involved. So when one of my teachers told us of an opportunity to work with RISC towards becoming a Global School we needed very little persuading. Knowing that 80% of our children had never visited their own capital city and that very few of them had ever met anyone with non-white skin was enough to decide that a deeper understanding of our role as Global Citizens should be a priority.

My expectations at the beginning of the project in September 2004, were by no means as clear to me as they are now. I expected to be challenged by it and I felt sure the school would be enriched by it but I had no precise idea of what the outcomes would be. Sustainability has always been high on my agenda and for many years has been promoted as a curricular priority. The children have learned about the importance of waste reduction and recycling. As a healthy school, food and its source has been regularly addressed in the curriculum. Promoting an understanding of religions other than Christianity was an obvious part of RE. Understanding Fair Trade has long been part of our PSHCE curriculum. We challenged stereotypes of people and places whenever the opportunity to do so arose but until our involvement with RISC I had not recognised the essential link between all of these. In my school SEF document I stated our aim as a church school: "to promote an understanding of being part of something bigger". Ironically I had not understood that far from being a solely religious or spiritual aim it is also literal. We are all part of a big, wide, diverse and wonderful world! The choices we make on a daily basis matter both locally and globally!
Once I had clarified my own understanding my expectations of the Global Schools Project became clear. We needed to help the children make the same kind of links by embedding a global dimension in everything we do.

The Global Project began with our School Development Plan; "Embedding a Global Dimension in Everything We Do" was detailed as a two year priority. This was essential for ensuring that governors understood its importance to us and involving them from the outset. A large display was prepared in our entrance hall entitled "The World in Clanfield" This consisted of a world map annotated with notes of any connection between members of our school community and another place in the world. (Sarah's auntie lives in Canada, Billy's dad was born in Australia, Mrs. Bloggs' car was made in Italy.) This was an effective starting point to the project with the children. It was simple to prepare and excluded nobody.

The Baseline Audit that was carried out by the RISC team at the start of the project identified some interesting outcomes. They worked in school firstly with the children and then with staff. They found that most of the children had very stereotypical views of countries in the majority world Children's ideas about sustainability reflected a sounder understanding, but were largely determined by their own experience of what was within their remit to control. The extent and depth of the children's insularity in general was very evident. As a result of the audit many opportunities for improving the Global Dimension in school were identified. As a staff, the teachers decided that whenever planning took place in the future, albeit for teaching or for an event, we would make sure that a Global Dimension was prioritised. As individuals we frequently found this to be challenging but when discussed as a team what seemed to present an enormous challenge often proved to be straightforward. Every activity, display and event with a Global Dimension was annotated and recorded.

A Second Audit of our school was carried out by the RISC team two years later, in September 2006. Again the team worked with the children using similar resources to the ones used for the Baseline Audit. The results broadly showed that although negative stereotypes of the majority world were still evident, children's knowledge and understanding had increased - for instance their ideas about what they would see if they visited an African country reflected more variety than last time - including lots of traffic, boats and aeroplanes not just the stereotypical view of ‘mud huts'.
Ideas about gender stereotyping were very firmly held. For example nobody thought a girl could become a doctor or builder; nobody thought a boy could become a nurse. The chances of a girl becoming a farmer were extremely small but teaching and nursing were considered to be female professions. The only profession to be seen as gender neutral was scientist.
The children were most knowledgeable about issues of sustainability and about education and why some children do not go to school. Both are linked closely with their curriculum work and life experience.

At first sight these outcomes were disappointing considering the Global emphasis placed upon every curriculum area. After time for reflection it became obvious that the influence we are able to exert at school is only part of the children's total experience; the audit results showed clearly the power of the media and of advertising in particular. The audit shows that we must continue to prioritise the Global Dimension and that 3 years into the project our journey has only just begun! The final audit, fours years after the start of the project, will give us another measure of our progress

Staff INSET has been an invaluable part of the Global Schools project. This has included Global Maths, D&T and Science, subjects where a Global dimension may not be instantly obvious. Other INSET has included Art, Literacy, oracy and music. Whole school INSET where every member of staff, teaching and non-teaching, shares a common experience provides the opportunity for the greatest impact. A memorable day for our whole staff was held at the RISC Centre where activities were set up to explore our preconceptions and attitudes. For example a major challenge for us as a group is about fund raising for general majority world projects. We have agreed to avoid this type of fund raising as it serves to reinforce negative attitudes but the debate about the regular Christmas shoe-box project continues with passion!

A library audit was a very helpful and practical service provided by the RISC team. Owing to financial constraints our library is limited and many books rather dated. Only 7 books in the entire collection represented a balanced view of the majority world! Many old books had already been discarded as they depicted very negative images but this is an area for massive improvement. In the school year 2007/8 we will be able to spend a large sum of money on improving our book stock.

Making a link with a school overseas was one of our initial objectives. We believed that this would provide a strong foundation for Global Citizenship and a great opportunity to cultivate friendships and promote respect for others. One of our teachers went to India for a holiday and whilst there, she was able to visit The Katha Community School in Delhi. She met the staff who agreed to a school link. The children at Clanfield School were very excited about their new pen friends but sadly, after one exchange of letters, the partnership proved to be too difficult to sustain.

This was disappointing, but it soon became clear that we could make a valuable link much closer to home. This was begun in the summer term of 2007 with a visit from the School Council of St Mary and St John Primary School, a large, culturally diverse school in the heart of Oxford. They are also part of the Global Schools project and equally keen to make a link with a contrasting local school. This was a very positive day for all of the children. They discovered that they had much in common with each other despite their schools being so very different. We are currently planning a joint team building day for our new school councils to be held at a local environmental centre.

"Why have you linked with a community that is 5,000 miles away, not with a Muslim Community in Britain" UKOWLA

Informing the wider community of our Global work, as well as keeping everyone in the school community informed of our progress was felt to be important. To this end I emphasised the Global Dimension in my annual report at the AGM of the Parish Council. They were very surprised that a small school such as ours was able to undertake such an interesting and far reaching project. Regular reports about the Global work of the school are also included in the village magazine delivered to every house in Clanfield and to another publication that is delivered to every house that shares the school's postcode.

One result of this publicity has been interest from other schools in our partnership. At the beginning of the third year of our involvement with the project we provided 2 twilight sessions of INSET for staff from the partnership and 3 schools attended. Follow up from these sessions has been positive with resources being shared, a Fair Trade simulation being tried for the first time and a general response of wanting to take the Global Dimension further.
Another very pleasing and unexpected outcome was an equality award from the local authority in recognition of our work in a small, rural, all white school.

Our aim for Global Citizenship is now clear:
"In our school we aim to develop a community of active global citizens.
People who can look beyond their own experience and see themselves as a member of the world community, all sharing the same basic needs.
People who have a sense of social justice, living sustainably and moral responsibility; who begin to understand that the choices we make both individually and collectively can affect global issues as well as local ones."

Although my initial understanding of Global Citizenship was limited I was never in doubt about the learning opportunities the Global Schools Project would provide for my children and staff and the enrichment it would provide for our school. I believe that in September 2005 we began a learning journey that will be lifelong. It is impossible to assign "smart targets" to attitudes but success for me would be that Gandhi's philosophy would be espoused by every member of our school

"Whatever you do will be insignificant, but it is very important that you do it."

"You must be the change you want to see in the world" Mahatma Gandhi

Jane Lloyd, headteacher, Clanfield CE Primary School, Oxfordshire, April 2008

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