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Hi Fiona,
Wow the effects of climate change have impacted your school directly but what sounds like serious flooding. I love that you include this in STEM and SESE activities by teaching the children about flood defences. I’m sure the children love model making and testing out different materials. Have you ever brought this project work to Science Blast at the RDS? It’s a great day out for the kids and I would highly recommend it!
Climate change has been very evident in this school year, particularly the extremely hot weather we saw in June where we had to be mindful of how much time children were spending in the sun and ensuring children had enough water to drink, places to cool down in the building and sunblock on. Some children in my class missed school due to being badly sunburned. The sustained very hot weather is a clear reflection of climate change and has been seen across Europe and other parts of the world this summer.
Facilitating discussions and educating the children with accurate, age-appropriate information about climate change is very important. Brainstorming actionable steps we can take together in the classroom or as a whole school community is important to help the children understand we can all make a difference.
Possible actions can be;
Giving children roles of responsibility, such as being ‘litter pickers’ with appropriate resources such as long handle grabbers to safely pick up litter around the school grounds. Other roles could be ‘electricity monitors’ who ensure lights and screens are turned off when not in use.
Encouraging children to use refillable water bottles instead of disposable bottles will also help minimise waste.
Doing art lessons which involve reusing or recycling materials can be a fun and creative way to reduce, reuse and recycle. For example, creating monsters from an array of materials such as cardbord boxes, scraps of textiles, etc. Making sock puppets with old socks which otherwise would be thrown out would also be fun.
This would link with ‘Sustainability and Inclusion’ element of the SSE guidelines where we can include sustainability goals directly into our school’s improvement plan.
Hi Mairead, that organisation sounds like it’s doing really important work. I’m sure there are Ukrainian children in your school who’s families benefit from the service. The whole community can benefit from something like this as it helps build community and allows the Ukrainian people to maintain their culture and language and to have pride in it while connecting with Irish culture.
There are no specific refugee organisations in the locality of our school but national organisations such as the Refugee Council and Irish Red Cross work across Ireland to support refugees.
In our school we have a mulitcultural week which culminates in ‘Diversity Day’ where all families, Irish and international, and members of the local community are invited to come to the school and show their national dress, food, music, books, culture, etc. The preparation for this and home-school communication fosters stronger links with families and hopefully helps all families to feel welcome and valued in our school community.
On an individual level, newcomer children are given a special welcome and some consideration is given to who they are buddied up with initially, usually someone who speaks the same language or is from the same country. They also receive EAL support when needed. We are fortunate to have several international staff working in the school who can translate correspondance and mediate at meetings with newcomers who may not understand much English.
This alignes with equity and inclusion aspects of SSE.
Hi Claire, lots of very empowering suggestions here that the children can really take ownership of, and hopefully see change happening throughout the school. I love your suggestion of sharing findings through assemblies and social media. Preparing to speak at an assembly really encourages the children to consolidate their learning so that they can teach about what they’ve learned. The use of social media to promote it is also great to get children to engage with the content. Fantastic ideas.
I would focus on the Clean Water and Sanitation Goal returning to school in September. This summer we have been experiencing heat waves across Ireland and Europe which is putting a strain on water supplies. Children may be aware that there is a hose-pipe ban in operation at the moment and there could be more restrictions to come if the weather continues to be so hot. With that in mind the children may already be thinking about the importance of clean, running water and imagining what it would be like without it.
Lesson 3 in this module provides a very relateable activity about the children’s own morning routines, which may involve brushing teeth, showering, having a drink of water, washing up after breakfast etc. And then watching a video of other children from around the world and seeing how their morning routine is, perhaps involving a long walk to the well to get water, and possibly not having access to clean water. This will tie into a Wellbeing focus of SSE.
I would encourage children to take action in support of Priority Action Area 5: Accelerating Local Level Actions. We could try to raise water conservation awareness around the school by designing informative and catchy posters. The children could bring their posters to other classes to raise awareness among younger classes and speak about what they’ve been learning.
Hi Gráinne, it’s lovely to hear about how Aistear is making a difference through play based learning. I have been teaching at the senior end of the school for many years and have never heard of ‘Prince Cinders’ but I love the idea of books like this and would love to read it myself!
Gender stereotyping is an issues across the primary school at all ages, and is often promoted, unwittingly, by staff. I teach at the senior end of the school and at times a colleague may come in to the room to ask for a ‘a few strong boys’ to help moving furniture etc. Boys will also often be asked to get PE equipment from the PE hall rather than girls. These seemingly small matters can deepen the idea that boys are strong and sporty while girls are not.
I have also seen it happen that when a girl behaves in a similar way to the boys she will be given out to while the boys would not be. This indicates an expectation that boys can be loud, rough, energetic and it is not seen as problematic, just typical boy behaviour. While a girl behaving the same way is being ‘bold’ or bad mannered.
I feel that often the young people are more in tune with gender issues, particularly in the senior end. For example, they are often more accepting of trans-issues than many of the staff are. In conclusion I would suggest that staff’s own prejudices are challenged, as well as challenging the children to think and see outside of gender stereotypes.
Hi Mel,
Role plays are a fantastic way to bring these themes to life in a way that children can engage with sensitivity and empathy to how another may feel. I also believe that children enjoy the creative flow of role plays and performing them for their classmates. I think it’s a great idea and can make Development Education more ‘real’ for children of all ages.
In his paper, ‘The Role of Global Citizens in Today’s World’, Ehigie explains that Development Education, at it’s core, teaches us that we are “all cut from the same cloth”. It helps us to have a deeper understanding of issues such as racism, poverty, hunger and inequality, and calls us to take action against these social injustices. Having deeper understanding of Global Issues through Development Education, “challenges any attempt to fundamentally distinguish ourselves from those around us, and implicitly calls on us to extend our solidarity to others and do as much as we can to uplift those around us.”
Ehigie acknowledges that looking at these major global issues can lead to exhaustion, demoralisation and melancholy. To this end, when dealing with these issues in the classroom it’s important to take a positive and empowering stand toward change and to focus on all of the fantastic initiatives and work taking place around the world already, so that children can feel empowered to be change makers. Trocaire have a wonderful appeal every year and share teaching resources with schools, which can be shared with colleagues and used as a basis for Development Education. Fair Trade also have fantastic resources for various age groups in primary school which help children understand what life might be like for a banana farmer in South America, for example. Children can have a better understanding and then feel positive about looking for Fair Trade items in the supermarket when shopping. I like to bring in a selection of Fair Trade items for the kids to try, particularly chocolate, to make the lessons more memorable. Having large coloured pictures of the places and people we’re focusing on, and having a range of activities for the children to work on together is very helpful. I like to share these resources with colleagues so we can cut down on printing and discussing activities together with colleagues can lead to more interesting ideas. We had a Fair Trade poster competition among 6th class where all sixth classes got to view the posters designed by other groups and vote for the best one. This piece of work aligned with SSE in terms of active learning, art and literacy e.g. persuasive writing about the benefits of Fair Trade.