Local4Global

The aim of the project, funded by DFID, is for Guestling-Bradshaw CEP school to become a global school. The school already addresses global issues in a variety of ways but it was felt by the school community that it was important to develop this further to ensure it was sustainable and to enable our school to become a beacon school that could support others in this field.

The vision

Developing a global awareness was already one of the priorities of the school's Improvement Development Plan but it was important that the whole school community agreed what the outcome for the school should look like. The first stage was therefore to have discussions with all stake holders as to what their vision was of a Global (sustainable) school. Both staff and the children were consulted on this.

Staff felt that in a Global school children will have the following:

Skills for life:-
• Be independent motivated learners;
• Be able to care for themselves and others;
• Be able to express themselves clearly in different situations;
• Be able to be creative problem solvers and think through situations;
• Have self help skills;
• Have a good moral understanding;
• Have respect for all;
• Be willing to contribute to learning and learn from others.

Knowledge:-
• Have increased knowledge and understanding of the diversity of the wider world they live in;
• Understand how all citizens have a contribution to make in society, their community and the responsibility and part they play in sustaining their world;
• Understand the impact of their actions - recycling, ethical buying, buying local produce, their carbon footprints - on other people's lives.

Children were asked "What would a good global citizen look like?":-

• Children that care for each other and others in the world;
• Children listen and accept that people can have different opinions;
• Children that have respect for all, for their faith and other faiths;
• Children that are aware of the greenhouse affect and the sort of things that lead to this;
• Children that care for their environment;
• Children that help in their community and the wider world;
• Children that do not waste - water, food, energy;
• Children that learn from other schools;
• Children that know how to grow food for themselves;
• Children that keep promises;
• Children that are loving;
• Children that understand what happens if you cut down plants;
• Children that learn different languages;
• Children that are considerate and forgiving;
• Children that can work together;
• Children that respect other peoples' property;
• Children aware of green aspects;
• Children know more about the world.

Based on these discussions the school set out to achieve the following outcomes:

All members of the community would have a greater understanding of the role they have in caring for and sustaining the environment.
All will have a greater understanding of how they fit into the wider world.
The school environment will reflect the importance that we place on sustainability in a globally interconnected world.

All stakeholders then considered our school's vision statement. At the Children's Gathering, a weekly meeting at which the children discuss whole school aspects, the children redrafted the vision looking at ways that it could show all visitors to the school that we had a commitment to sustaining and caring for the world that we all live in.

At Guestling Bradshaw Church of England Primary School we are happy, feel safe, every child matters;

AND

We work, learn and achieve together.

We worship and reflect together.

Opinions and Others matter

"Working with Others" helps us to do our best.

We know that all children in the world matter too.

We know that we have an important part in the caring for and sustaining of our environment.

It was felt that if the children were active in formulating the vision then they would commit to it and want to achieve it.

Benchmarking

The school wanted to establish a baseline as to where we were before the project began. The school, together with our local DEC (Pestalozzi) developed,(sourced from a company that provides on-line questionnaires for the school), a questionnaire about the opinions of the school community on global and environmental issues. The on-line questionnaire was devised and sent out to a random group of children to complete as well as to parents, other staff and governors at the school. The questionnaire and the findings will be reported to the whole school community as well as being available on the school's website for other schools access.

Findings from the questionnaire

The questionnaire highlighted the children's lack of awareness of their carbon footprint. Over 50% felt that there was not enough food in the world to feed everyone. 50% thought that young people all over the world did not have similar interests. 62% felt that we needed to help make the world a better place and that it is was better to make the world a fairer place than to earn a lot of money. It showed that the children have a growing awareness of our global world and the part they have to play in it and aspects that we would want to develop further.

Curriculum development

One of the areas picked up on by OFSTED was the continued use of Chembakolli as a case study in year 4. This area of study had given some children the idea that all of India was like the village. Obviously this is a stereotypical image of India. The school has now rewritten this learning journey in collaboration with Pestalozzi and will publish this as a unit of work to share with other schools. We also intend to publish this report in the Learning Magazine that is circulated to all schools in East Sussex.

The school has also become a pilot primary school for an on-line learning community called Rafi.ki. Rafi-ki (http://rafi.ki/) uses "simple technology to build successful school partnerships, transforming pupils into global citizens." The school will undertake two projects initially, one centred around ‘The View from My Window' and the second one around ‘Celebrations' (of similarities and differences). This will be a way of enabling the children at our school to link with children in schools around the world on shared projects. The projects will be published on Rafi-ki and will also appear on our website and learning platform.

Training and Events

We are soon to start work with a new charity, Young Pioneers, which aims to empower young people and show that young people can make a difference. They believe that "it is Cool to Care. Cool to care for yourself, for others and for the environment". Young Pioneer staff alongside Young Pioneers will train a group of children to become Go Green Carbon Footprint Trainers. Having been trained, this group would then be able to train other groups of children in the school. In this way as the older trainers move on a new group would take their place each year.

Later in the year we have a week long Global event with a local partnership school as part of One World Week. The week will address issues such as our global mutual dependence and is being developed in partnership with Pestalozzi.

Further collaborations and Sharing our findings with others

The development of the Global school is not something that will happen over night. It is a journey to change the minds and hearts of the community to ensure that they care about the future of our world. Our school is already developing links with other schools in this country and in the wider world to share our learning and to develop an understanding of our interconnectedness.

We are also committed to sharing our progress towards become a global school, with other schools, community groups, LA's through conferences, articles and meetings. The photo below was of our display at a Head teachers' conference in Eastbourne January 2009.

Carolyn Weston, Headteacher. February 2009

Background

Over the past two years Guestling-Bradshaw CEP School has worked closely with Pestalozzi and aims to strengthen this partnership as part of a plan to embed global dimension in the curriculum. During the first year the school was assisted in the running of a Globetrotters After-School Club. The children attending this Club developed their understanding and knowledge of world trade and human rights, and fair trade is something that should be a priority for all in the world. This was just the beginning. The whole school attended a training day organised by Pestalozzi in September 2007. Staff considered how Guestling could embrace many aspects of community cohesion; pupil voice, appreciation and promotion of diversity, respecting and celebrating differences. The development of global awareness was one of the school's priorities on our School Improvement Development Plan for 2007 -8.

Front doorOne of the actions was to find ways to have people from different countries in our school and celebrate diversity. This year students from Pestalozzi Village were placed in the school. Plans were carefully thought through to enable the students to be first hand human resource to support topics on Hinduism, Christianity, Zimbabwe and India, and also linked to geography subject areas of mountains and rivers.

With younger children the students supported playground games and shared stories from their cultures. In a school that is predominately white British, it is crucial that we develop as many opportunities to understand that Britain and the world with which we live in has a wide diversity of people.

An outcome from the partnership was an increased knowledge and respect for people from different backgrounds. This was established through the students sharing their cultures and geographical features. The students became part of the school family and staff and children looked forward to their visits.

OFSTED, whilst acknowledging the strengths of this partnership and those formed with a local school, raised diversity as an area to continue to develop. The school is planning to do this through developing it's partnership with Pestalozzi and extending further links with schools in the world. The school, in its striving to be an Eco-school, will investigate through the school council different ways to achieve this.

Carolyn Weston, Headteacher. July 2008

www.guestlingbradshaw.ik.org

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