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One problem related to climate change in our school area is flooding. We are situated close to the Dodder river which frequently floods ,especially after the rainstorms that we are seeing. Dublin County Council have now begun works on a flood alleviation scheme. It’s funny but often Irish children know more about the River Nile , for example, than one in their locality. All pupils could be taken on age appropriate field trips along the Dodder to identify wildlife and plants. They could also participate in clean-up activities. An education officer from DCC could be invited in to the school to speak to pupils about their plans.
Three ideas where we could help with climate change in our school area would be to:
1. Join forces with the Dodder Valley Action Group and help with litter picking.
2. Continue to monitor and try to reduce the amount of food waste stemming from our school.
3. The Student Council along with older classes could investigate fast fashion and it’s impacts on climate change.
A topic for SSE could be our whole school approach to Reducing, Re-using and Recycling when it comes to electricity, materials, water and food consumption.
Thanks for the tip Emer. I looked up the website there for the tree planting scheme. It is a fantastic community environmental initiative.
As a teacher in a diverse community in Dublin 24 I am aware of some of the supports available to help refugees integrate into the area. There is a specific Migrant Integration team, Crosscare and an Intercultural drop in centre to name just a few. HSCL teams in the area also target this.
One part of our SSE DEIS plan review we focused on transitions to our school and integration. One of the ideas we have come up with is making a welcome information booklet translated into different languages to provide information about the school. This is especially for people who come mid-year and may miss out on information evenings and messages at the start of the year. Other information such as reports and important notes can be translated too. We have welcome displays in our lobby in different languages and maps throughout the school that children have coloured in to represent the different nationalities and languages that feature in their classes.
We also hold a world cafe during arts week to celebrate different cultures. Language classes for parents are also arranged in the school with activities to encourage more parental involvement such as a community choir.
Breaking down the barriers to social inclusion is vital to enable refugee children to settle in school and prosper. Often we are so caught up with how jam packed the curriculum is and continue the usual work when new pupils arrive. I will definitely use the lessons from Plan International and the Amnesty video ‘Who do you think I am?’ in the future, in a sensitive way, to help develop more empathy and awareness in my class about the challenges some of their schoolmates and indeed people in their community may have faced . Life is so busy sometimes that I think both teachers and pupils need to be reminded that there are bigger things going on in the world!
Absolutely. Some great, simple, easily put into action ideas there. The buddy system is a particularly good idea too.
The goals of promoting responsible consumption and production along with Climate Action are ideal to promote in a primary school setting. The younger the children adopt positive habits the better for the planet.
The journey our food takes from farm to our forks creates greenhouse gases. Leftover food then continues to release greenhouse gases into the atmosphere as it rots. The United Nations Food and Agriculture Organisation has calculated that if all food waste was classified as a country it would be the third highest emitter of greenhouse gases coming along after the USA and China.
We tried to tackle this problem on a local scale in our school this year as part Green schools. I am conscious teaching in a DEIS school for over twenty years that there are many children who rely on the school lunches and indeed I think about how they are faring during the summer holidays.
Our school now has the hot lunch scheme and are tied into a contract for the next few years with a company who would only allow us to use hot lunches as the only option. When we had the cold lunches there was less waste involved and anything left over could be collected by the local homeless hub who then distributed this so there was virtually no waste. They can’t collect the hot lunches as they can’t take the responsibility of reheating in case of food poisoning. With the cold lunches children could also bring home the food if they chose to eat later in the day/over the weekend. Some of our families don’t have access to cooking facilities so the hot lunch is vital for them. A combination approach where the children could order both would reduce waste and reduce hunger too.
Our Green schools project focused on encouraging children and parents to continually look at their child’s lunch option and see whether they were actually eating this or not. They could change the option or cancel it if their child wasn’t eating it. In one class 2/3’s of the food was being dumped over the week. In other classes many children were bringing in lunch as usual and eating this hot lunch also which is possibly contributing to rising obesity levels. Green schools committee members made posters and visited the classes at lunch to survey the waste and encourage children to think about the waste generated. Parents were also informed.It was huge success.
I feel that this could be extended further if we petition politicians and highlight the waste this scheme, although very noble, creates. The money involved for each school is staggering and could be used to better effect employing extra Snas, Speech and language therapists etc.
As previously stated I am fully aware that many children rely on these meals but there are also many children like my own , in a non DEIS school, who have recently started the scheme and were managing perfectly fine with lunch coming from home.
As part of SSE we could look at our healthy eating policy and educate classes around their food option choices and also incorporate some cookery classes into the curriculum. We could also make the new cohort of Junior Infant parents aware of how the scheme is faring and how they can help reduce waste.
I totally agree Nicole. The Green Schools Project has been a great focus for climate activities in our school that gets the whole school thinking.
Gender stereotypes unfairly ascribe traits on us all depending on whether we are male or female. These societally preconceived assumptions can be harmful in that they have the potential to limit our ability to pursue certain paths in life, develop our abilities and influence or limit our choices.
As an infant teacher I have seen how children come to school as young as four with preconceived gender notions stemming from home. One conversation that has stuck with me was after a group of girls had been hoarding all the pink crayons at their table. One boy really wanted to use pink in his picture and there was a debate at the table about the colours boys should use. Pink not being one of them. One boy actually stated that his dad would get annoyed if he used pink a lot at home. I let this play out and I was delighted when one levelled headed guy explained that it didn’t matter what colour they used. They could all like any colour they wanted to. He was well liked in the class so his idea was taken on board and the pinks were shared out evenly. I commended him for his good sense.
Having now viewed the resources and video I would capitalise on this conversation and use the Plan International lessons about gender to embed the message further.
As part of our SSE we could make extra efforts to ensure all teams and individual pupils are given equal praise and airtime on the intercom and at assembly to mark any achievements. We could also focus on the gender module as a whole school and also enlist the Student Council to run a poster competition around gender equality issues and the Rights of the Child.
Absolutely! We have plenty of amazing athletes heading off to the Olympics now too who are living proof of what potential we all have.
It’s sad to say but I have also experienced this as young as infants. During aistear role play the girls would often assume tasks traditionally associated with women like caring for babies or cooking whilst the boys generally veered towards the tools and building. To counteract this I would sometimes assign roles to shake things up a bit!
Development Education has a vital role to play in our education system as it promotes understanding and awareness of global issues that affect people ,communities and societies throughout the world. Development Education strives to empower the future generation to take action for a more just world.
According to Ehigie “To be a global citizen, is to care. It is to empathise” These are extremely important qualities we as teachers model and nurture on a daily basis. In primary school children develop foundations that they will take with them throughout their lives as active citizens.
Completing this module has reminded me of of a course I completed in college on Development Education and how much focus I placed on it on teaching practice and as a nqt with older classes. I used the brilliant photo resource packs and lesson plans from NCDE. Having moved to teaching infants I had missed the chance to incorporate it into a younger class. Through this course it has refreshed my interest in DE and having looked through the Plan International lesson packs and other resources I feel excited to try out some of the lessons, for example on gender issues in my senior infants class in the coming year or lessons concerning where their chocolate bar/clothes came from.
I teach in a multi cultural Deis school in Dublin. As part of a recent SSE DEIS policy review we worked on how we can make our school more of a welcoming place for all. We looked at promoting cultural awareness and a sense of belonging not only to the school and community but also celebrating the many lands our pupils have come from. We have a welcome area in the foyer we a map labelled with pins on all the countries our children come from. We have ‘hello and welcome’ displayed in al the different languages. On the door of each classroom is a world map where the nationalities of the pupils in that particular room are celebrated. Classes also did projects on countries and presented them to other classes. In previous years we have, as part of our efforts to make parent welcome too, had a World Cafe showcasing food from our various cultures. Stemming from this we created a school cookbook to showcase and celebrate our multiculturalism.
This year as part of our Green Schools we looked at reducing food waste caused by the new hot lunch scheme. We also completed a school wide project on Fairtrade. All of these activities were easy to run as the children were interested and motivated as it related to their world.
