Local4Global

Work with Haringey has progressed since June 2009, particularly in relation the Haringey Earth Summit. Mark attended and supported through steering meetings and by online and email correspondence with the team throughout the preparations. Particular areas of input were around the Development Education/Global Dimension input into the themes of the conference (e.g. effects of global warming on the South, materials available from NGOs on impacts etc), and around sustainability of actions. Mark also was involved in advising on some of the programme content, for example the choice of countries that that schools would research as part of their preparation for the Summit. The organisation of the conference per se was undertaken by Haringey as part of their commitment to active Global Citizenship.

Mark opened up dialogue around the use of Fronter to meet the main aims of the NLSIN Local Authorities engagement to share the process and findings with the other boroughs and to use the Earth Summit as a focus for participation and global learning rather than being limited to a one off event with impact only on those attending. The Haringey team recognise that the ‘organising of an Earth Summit to coincide with Copenhagan 2009’ is not in itself a piece of work to share with the L4G network, but that the ongoing impact and sustainability of this event must be the focus.  Jude Clements and Dan Warner from the Haringey team recognised that the use of Fronter is of importance in London-wide work and as a model to other boroughs and took up this aspect of the work to build a Fronter ‘room’ from which to develop wider engagement.

This allows schools to become engaged online with the Earth Summit and its themes, and is a useful way for the link teachers (from each school) and attendee students to broaden the wider participation of students within their schools. This is growing and includes news links, films, forums, and all the presentations from the schools given at the Summit.

The Summit took place with high levels of borough participation and positive feedback. Mark wrote a short summary as a participant not involved in the actual organisation of the day. Mark co-developed a participatory workshop for the afternoon of the Summit with Oxfam’s John McLaverty which was delivered by Mark and Lisa Rutherford, Head of Oxfam campaigns. This workshop was under the broader brief from the Summit organisers but had a particularly strong focus on the connection between climate change and impact on the South (in this case, Gambia). Global Dimension and Oxfam’s learning aims were met in this session.

As an additional input to the final preparations, Mark highlighted the importance of including a strong sustainability angle to the summit (post Summit action and engagement). From this input, Katie Rigg, one of the team members, developed a handout around this for teachers to take away. 

The Haringey team have recently fed back what their understanding is of the commitment to L4G:

“The Earth Summit is one of the models towards achieving Make a Positive Contribution  Priority 8 – Develop Global Citizens, one of the 10 Priorities in the LBH Children Implementation Plan 2009-2012.  A team is planning for a borough wide Community Cohesion Conference for March 2010, which will be followed by the Model UN, and then Junior Citizen’s Debate in the summer. We have a cycle of activities now that we are learning from in terms of improving each time we plan the next one. This is then interspersed with a number of NLSIN activities as well as BC facilitated sessions to support schools in embedding global development issues as part of the curriculum through global connecting classrooms partnerships.”

A meeting was held on 7^th December between Mark and Dan Warner around Fronter and the way in which this could act as part of their model for sharing. Another post-Summit meeting and post-Copenhagen was held in late December where a lessons learnt document was devised. The whole group (of 7 members) all attended.

Update Jan 2010 

The Humanities Education Centre was approached by Haringey to explore the promotion of the global dimension and invited to attend the Vision 2020 day with heads and education colleagues across the authority. Haringey had already produced an internal paper Haringey: the Global Hub in which the borough recorded its international work in the context of one of the most diverse communities within the UK. HEC met with the International Officer for the borough, Bhavani Sharma, who has been active in promoting linking and the ISA to all schools, and Kathryn Rhodes, the Head of Workforce Redevelopment. At the meeting it was agreed that HEC would make a Local4Global presentation on the School Improvement Service day in December.

After the presentation the Steering Group meeting for HL4G (Haringey Local for Global) was formed of education advisers covering citizenship, ICT, sustainable schools and the International Officer, was formed to explore the promotion of the global dimension in schools within the borough.

The outcomes from two activities: Relevance of the Global Dimension to your role within Haringey and a SWOC exercise to explore perceived Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Challenges will inform the first meeting of the working group which will be in early March.

Agreed actions are:

• Identification of a Local Authority ‘L4G team' for liaison with other NLSIN boroughs
• Individual borough activities and joint activities - sharing with other local authorities within and outside of the NLSIN network

Haringey is hosting the DFID Global School Partnerships ‘Involving Communities' CPD session.

Haringey is a member of the North London Schools International Network.

February 2009

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