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In my area there is an increased risk of flooding, especially coastal and river flooding, and changes in weather patterns. These changes can affect infrastructure, agriculture, and potentially human health and well-being. We have seen more storms, weather warnings, heatwaves, snow days in the last few years and it is found to continue to happen unless people make changes. I’m on a Lapland group and even in December snow can’t be guaranteed anymore which is so sad.
I would engage pupils to explore this further by exploring what they can do to slow down climate change.3 things I can go to make the world a better place and slow down climate change are save energy at home by turning off appliances when not in use and change all lightbulbs to energy saving ones and consider solar panels as a source of energy. Walk or cycle to work instead of taking the car. Repair and alter clothes/shoes etc instead of buying new ones and buying less so better quality clothes that last longer.
I would teach the children that small changes make a difference and encourage them to pass on this information at home. I feel that explaining the negative things that are happening both locally and further afield could be improved by taking small actions can help. The children we are teaching are the future so creating good habits from a young age is so important. Having light and white board monitors in school really helps as kids love jobs, encouraging children to walk/scoot/cycle to school and encouraging recycling in school. We have done recycled materials fashion show which the kids loved.
Regarding SSE, schools need to make collective decisions as a whole school to encourage different initiatives to help with climate change.
I totally agree with you aout the lack of frosty days, I can count on my hands the amount of days last year I actually had to defrost the car which is so unusual, it used to be almost every morning in winter. Even when we consider the amount of days we have had off school in the past few years due to weather, this alone shows the huge impact climate change is having.
In my local area Mountain Park and the Clondalkin Intercultural Centre work with refugees. The centres are daytime hubs for refugee, asylum seeker and migrant communities living in South County Dublin. They both offer conversational English language classes, in addition to regular ESOL classes – catering to the English language training needs of almost 40 students each day. The centres also run several weekly drop-in, advice and support clinics for refugees and asylum seekers.
My school could have more international days to celebrate culture, bring more parents in to share stories etc – we used to do a lot more of this before covid. We could translate school reports and newsletters. We could have a map in the main reception area with a pin for all the different regions the children in our school come from. We could have hello/welcome translated into all the different languages of the kids in our school. Lessons on migration are so important. I loved watching the video of the 5th class students in this module and watching their learning at the end of the lesson. The empathy they had was lovely to see. I will definitely be sharing these lessons with my staff when I go back to school. Buddy lunch sessions with children from different countries would be nice. Picture books are an invaluable resource to raise awareness. Using google translate tool can help children struggling with English language and make classwork more accessible to them.
Sounds like the students were made feel so welcome in your school and in the local community. I love how English lessons are being offered for parents also. Schools really are remarkable places and can have such positive influence on the children and their families.
The SSG I’ve chosen to look at is number 10 reduced inequalities.
Getting children to work on projects/posters to explore and highlight the companies that pay their workers fairly and treat their workers well to encourage people to buy from these would be great as knowledge is power. Sometimes you don’t realise yourself until you do research and I have to say I was surprised by some clothing stores that have been critisised for unethical practices. Fair trade is another great one to explore with kids – looking also at companies that pay their workers a fair price and don’t exploit children and women, having children working instead of getting an education should also be looked at. This cycle needs to be broken to help reduce inequality. The shocking statistics need to be shared to make people think before they buy. I saw a lovely poster online about the resolution 6 r’s – rethink, refuse, repair, reduce, reuse, recycle. This should make a nice poster option to explore with the kids. Children could then explore ways to encourage people not to buy from these companies and to reuse clothing.
We do this in our school with Halloween costumes – parents are encouraged to send in costumes and then kids can come down and get a new costume so they aren’t buying them. I’ve seen other schools do this with uniforms. This could be extended to the community – I have seen dress swap events in the community. Children could do posters encouraging people to buy from charity shops, car boot sales, swap with friends, repair clothes instead of throwing out, free cycles online, clothing banks etc and these could be put on school website to help it go locally. Also inviting a local newspaper in or local councillors/TD’s to create awareness and involve the wider community. I’m always looking for ways to involve the wider community. This could be a project for several schools in the local area looking at different areas and a display of the children’s work in the local library perhaps to get further media attention.
The global inequality module can get into SSE in my schools through our learn together programme. I think spreading the learning to the locality, other schools and outside parties is so important and makes a bigger impact but also makes learning real for children.You’ve some great ideas here. I love your project title suggestion – a great one for kids and found your article very interesting and definitely something with looking at.
Genderstereotypes are most certainly evident from a young age.
My own brother in law didn’t want nephew getting a kitchen because he was a boy, it was the toy he most played with when he came to my house. I challenged this with him saying he would more than likely grow up to be a daddy himself and cooking for his family etc and he ended up getting the kitchen. My sister was a tomboy and when she was in junior infants wanted a John Deere tractor and action man walkie talkies people said to my mam “you’re not really getting that for her are you?” She said if that’s what she wants that what she gets. You can see it also when people are buying baby presents they buy pink versions of toys for girls and more neutral ones for boys, dolls for girls, tractors and cars for boys.
This year with my 5th class we did a lesson on the advantages and disadvantages of being a boy/girl and it was so interesting to see the opinions of both sexes. Each point was written up on the board exactly as it was called out but a discussion followed on that opinion and others were given time to give their opinion. It was evident that some children were willing to stand up and speak for the other side and their opinions were very strong. The children found it most beneficial to see both perspectives. It was a guided open conversation where both sides got their say but they started to empathise with the opposite gender and see the other side of the story. It followed with how could we better phrase that point now after our discussion,would we change the way you originally said it.
A class in my school the girls were far sportier than the boys, on sports day the boys insisted on playing a football match boys v girls, the girls won and the boys were not happy at all. They insisted again on boys v girls for tug of war to show they were “stronger than the girls and that they would easily win this and redeem themselves” (which they didn’t ) They then blamed the teacher and started calling her sexist.
In my own class last year the boys wouldn’t pass to the girls in PE even though several of the girls play sport outside of school. Class discussions followed and we did lessons on women in sport and the children were encouraged to come up with solutions themselves.
Development education methodologies can help combat these stereotypes by teacher having an active role in shaping the learning, asking the children why they think a particular way or why they say this this and challenging these stereotypes and having meaningful discussions with the children encouraging them to see others point of view. Encouraging children to challenge inequality and value and respect others opinions feeds directly into SSE promoting inclusivity, celebrating difference and looking at the holistic education of the children. I feel we do a very good job of this in an educate together setting .
I love your idea of suggestion boxes. Children love to feel their voices are being heard and then lessons can be taught to further explain the questions/suggestions children have or come up with and have a genuine interest in the topic/s.
Teaching in an educate together school we have regular whole school projects. We use buddy system with the senior classes working with the junior classes and we use picture books to discuss topics. We have packs made based on the different picture books that are all labelled according to theme. We do project work and different year groups prepare and present on different topics in assembly topics such as fair trade, migration, refugees, global warming, women in society, injustice poverty, homelessness, exploiting of children in factories etc. We do projects on real world problems and watch news today. We have done projects on children’s rights and the developmental goals. In the senior classes, children take it in turns to research world news and present to their class. We celebrate cultural diversity and invite parents in for intercultural days and assemblies. Children present on their religions, their cultures and all celebrations are represented and explained so there is a mutual understanding and acceptance. We had a human rights walk this year where each class explored human rights and we called out the local newspaper.
It is so important to foster social aware, accepting young people as they are the future adults of the country. The children are required to think critically and celebrate the different cultures within our school community.
The article is so relevant to the classrooms in Ireland. Children are getting accurate information. The children in our school are very active participants in both our green school and student union as our school is democratically run. They are confident to ask questions and are generally very empathetic to others.We teach these topics through SESE, our learn together programme and through picture books, debates and circle time.
Development Education feeds naturally into SSE. It is a great opportunity to allow the student, parent, teacher and the suffer school communities voices to be heard. We regularly get first speakers in during croke Park hours and then work on follow up projects. We try to integrate into our SESE as much as possible so that it’s not extra work on teachers.
Teaching in an educate together school we have regular whole school projects. We use buddy system with the senior classes working with the junior classes and we use picture books to discuss topics. We have packs made based on the different picture books that are all labelled according to theme. We do project work and different year groups prepare and present on different topics in assembly topics such as fair trade, migration, refugees, global warming, women in society, injustice poverty, homelessness, exploiting of children in factories etc. We do projects on real world problems and watch news today. We have done projects on children’s rights and the developmental goals. In the senior classes, children take it in turns to research world news and present to their class. We celebrate cultural diversity and invite parents in for intercultural days and assemblies. Children present on their religions, their cultures and all celebrations are represented and explained so there is a mutual understanding and acceptance. We had a human rights walk this year where each class explored human rights and we called out the local newspaper.
It is so important to foster social aware, accepting young people as they are the future adults of the country. The children are required to think critically and celebrate the different cultures within our school community.
The article is so relevant to the classrooms in Ireland. Children are getting accurate information. The children in our school are very active participants in both our green school and student union as our school is democratically run. They are confident to ask questions and are generally very empathetic to others.We teach these topics through SESE, our learn together programme and through picture books, debates and circle time.
Development Education feeds naturally into SSE. It is a great opportunity to allow the student, parent, teacher and the suffer school communities voices to be heard. We regularly get first speakers in fishing croke Park hours and then work on follow up projects. We try to integrate into our SESE as much as possible so that it’s not extra work on teachers.
I’ve also seen the above “can I get a few strong lads to help me move the tables?” I always send half boys and half girls.
I also rotate classroom jobs so that both boys and girls are required to clean paint pallets etc after art as I’ve seen some boys saying that’s a girl’s job or the girls are good at cleaning.
I think it’s so important to call the children out on these stereotypes
