| Involvement in Global Footprints has helped
to promote ESD across the whole curriculum and impact on the school development
plan in Beech
Hill School, Wigan.
Beech Hill, a primary school with 500 pupils from nursery to year 6,
has developed ESD work with various partners over several years, integrating
ESD into the ethos, management and curriculum of the school.
Teachers have developed units of work in different subjects and have
built these into long-term curriculum planning. Activities have been developed
from the school's participation in Global Footprints and with the help
of Lancashire Global Education Centre (LGEC) (link to info on DEC).
Many of the activities combine ESD objectives with subject-specific objectives.
The objectives include:
- raising awareness and exploring action to reduce
individuals' impact on the environment
- developing indicators to measure the school's progress
towards reducing its environmental impact
- encouraging children to devise their own solutions
to problems
- encouraging pupils to become involved in decision-making
processes
The activities are also linked to QCA Schemes of Work. Examples include
science (scientific enquiry and materials and their properties), art and
design (developing work to reflect views and ideas) and geography (improving
the local environment).
Some specific examples include:
- Song of the world, an art and design unit of work
for Year 5. The activities enabled pupils to communicate ideas by making
a collaborative textile, and are adapted from the QCA Art Scheme of
Work Unit 5C 'Talking Textiles'.
Pupils explored how textiles from different places and times represent
events and stories. They used photographs of a modern tapestry, 'The
Song of the World', displayed in Wigan's 'twin town' in France. This
ensured a European dimension/link to the work.
Pupils discussed different elements of the tapestry before developing
their own. The theme of 'The Joy of Living' was selected and using information
and ideas from various sources including the Internet pupils worked
in groups to complete a 'collaborative tapestry'.
The school intends to develop this work in future, using e-mail to communicate
and share ideas with French pupils at a school in their 'twin town'.
- A science activity on babies’ nappies (link
to activity details on site) for pupils in Year 3.
This aimed to develop an understanding of the impact of human activity
and how people's individual choices can effect the environment.
Over a number of lessons pupils investigated the properties of materials
by observing, measuring and investigating the absorbency of different
types of disposable and re-usable nappies.
The environmental and economic impacts of different nappies were then
considered (e.g. use of energy and water by washing nappies and landfill
from disposable nappies etc).
This work was extended to consider local, national and global implications
(e.g. cost, amount of waste etc).
-
What do we throw away? This Year
4 activity built on work in geography, and developed ideas on 'handling
data' from the QCA Geography Scheme of Work Unit 25: 'Geography and
Numbers'.
Over half a term, pupils collected and weighed classroom rubbish and
were encouraged to think about and discuss its effects (e.g. smell
and hygiene) and implications (e.g. where does rubbish get moved to?).
Pupils looked into the issue at school and home and considered the
people involved, linking with work in geography on how to improve
the local area. Another purpose of the activity was to develop indicators
to help measure the school's progress in reducing its impact and thereby
reflect the aims of the school's ESD policy.
It is important that work in the classroom feeds into and links with
school policy on ESD as it is clearly vital that taught values are
reflected in school practice.
The school has adapted other units from the QCA Geography Scheme of Work
as part of their work on ESD, including Unit 8 on improving the environment,
Unit 12 on traffic, and Units 10 and 18 on how people connect with other
parts of the world.
The school considers that its whole school approach to ESD and its involvement
in the Global Footprints project has motivated pupils and helped them
begin to make connections between their role as members of the school
and their role as citizens in the local and global community.
Evidence of this seems to come from the School Council where discussions
and decisions seem to reflect a greater emphasis on a sustainable development
agenda than might otherwise be expected.
A letter from the chairperson on the School Council to the Local Council
Waste Officer requests ‘a paper and card recycling box for every
classroom and the office’. The letter concluded, ‘I hope you
will be in agreement with us as I am sure it will be of benefit to the
environment to put all the waste in school to good use’.
The Global Footprints project/ESD work has also encouraged teacher collaboration
and improved teaching and learning through combining skills and knowledge
from different curriculum areas.
The schools considers that the key ingredients for success have been:
- developing and sharing a commitment to ESD at the school
- identifying opportunities for developing ESD skills and concepts
in different subject areas
- planning for progression of knowledge and understanding of ESD
- encouraging colleagues to share ideas and develop their understanding
of ESD in the curriculum
- reviewing successful activities from the school's schemes of work
to give them an ESD emphasis, and not planning to deliver completely
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