The idea came as a result of investigating suitable subjects for our P7/S1 Remembrance Assembly on 11th November 2009. I have a friend who works in the UN in New York who mentioned the Cyberbus website and its connection to the Millennium Goals - looking through the site I could see how useful it could be. The Goal concerning Universal Primary Education fitted in with CfE Global Citizenship and was something P7s and S1s could relate to. it also resonated with education as a key theme in resolving conflict. Fyne Homes had also been in touch with me about sending furniture from our old school site to schools in Africa under the auspices of the Charity Education for All.
After discussion with our Chaplaincy Team I contacted all our associated Primaries with the proposed cross-sectoral and inter-disciplinary theme - Peace, Conflict and Resolution.
Pupils researched UN Millennium Goals website to gain information and understanding and presented their findings at the Assembly in a variety of ways.
Several Departments including Social Subjects, Music, Maths, French and Home Economics took part and S5 pupils acted as hosts on the day.
Pupils therefore investigated the importance of education to a country's development and in gaining peace and resolution in areas of conflict.
Social Subjects : pupils created colourful posters in groups showing their research and thoughts
Music : pupils made up their own wors to a traditional African song
Maths : pupils used coordinates to illustrate the theme
French : Lucky / Unlucky. Pupils compared the opportunities which they have with children in some countries who are not so lucky - and managed to present findings in French
Home Economics : pupils baked 'peace cookies' which were sold after the assembly. £60.00 was collected to send to the charity Education for All.
The younger pupils took responsibility for presnting the information and were nervous at the thought ! They did well however and gained confidence in knowing that they coped with the challenge. The S5 pupils took on the role of welcoming P7s from other primary schools and helping them throughout the process. I was very impressed with both groups, that they took the topic seriously, thought of other people, learned a lot through research and in presenting information to a large group and acted as responsible citizens during the assembly and at the two minutes' silence. Parents and carers were kept informed of the theme by information in our Newsletter.
Evaluation the exercise since November has shown that the pupils enjoyed the exercise, worked well in groups and learned about things which they did not know already. They have managed to transfer some of this knowledge and skills to other subjects and topics across the school. We hope to sustain this ripple effect by using the Millennium Goals as a way of enhancing the 4 capacities of CfE.
Our next step is to continue investigation of the Millennium Goals and are planning to look at Gender Equality with our new P7s and S1s next term.