posted by Alita Spink, Schools and Learning Support Officer, Schools and Learning

Speaker’s School Council Awards – Tell us about a School Council or student-led initiative that made a difference in your school or community.  Big or small, we want to hear about it!
The competition is open from now to 19 May.
For more information, call 0207 219 6260 or go to www.speakersschoolcouncil.org

Apply now for summer 2017 Teachers’ Institute – Applications for Teachers’ Institute 3 – 5 July 2017 are now open and close 2 April . Apply now for this free 3-day residential course: “the best CPD I’ve ever experienced”

Skype the Speaker – Long way from London? Got Skype? Your pupils can put their questions direct to Mr Speaker live from your school hall. Makes for a great whole school or year group assembly Find out more or book here.

From our partners

Parliament Explained – A new podcast from the UK Parliament – New six-part podcast series presented by Meera Syal  which explores the inner workings of Parliament – what Parliament is, how Parliament scrutinises the work of the Government, how laws are made and changed, and how you – the public – can get involved.  The podcast will be released every Monday from 20 March 2017. For more information, and links to the podcast on iTunes and Soundcloud.

Petitions from the classroom – When students from a Gateshead secondary school started an e-petition asking the Government to DNA test the bodies believed to be the princes in the tower, we were left wondering whether that was something that Parliament or Government could do. See what we found out.

posted by Alita Spink, Schools and Learning Support Officer, Schools and Learning

On 16 March 2016, members of Children’s Parliament (MCPs), Youth Ambassadors and adult decision makers from across Scotland met at the second National Sitting of Children’s Parliament. This took the form of the Active Children’s Project, which explored children’s views and experience of sport and physical activity in Scotland.

Forty children aged 8 to 11 took part in the project from Edinburgh, Angus, Falkirk, East Dunbartonshire and Highland. Find out more about the project here

posted by Julie Smith, Instrumental Instructor, Schools and Learning

ANGUS YOUTH ORCHESTRA

&

GUEST SOLOISTS

Thursday 23^rd March

Brechin Community Campus

7pm

Tickets £5 and £3 concession

Available on the door

posted by Alita Spink, Schools and Learning Support Officer, Schools and Learning

Call for participants for Fair Trade Fiesta Parade on 13 May 2017:

We invite your school, college, faith group, youth & community groups etc. to take part to take part in the Fair Trade Fiesta Parade on 13 May to celebrate Scotland as a Fair Trade Nation on World Fair Trade Day.  You can come up with your own ideas.  The last Fiesta saw walking Fair Trade Bananas; vibrant fruits; amazing costumes made of paper and fabric; music and more.  Watch the video here.

Funding is available by applying to the Scottish Fair Trade Forum’s Community Grant scheme for support towards costumes and travel to the event.  Grants are a maximum of £250 and can take up to 4 weeks to process.  More information on how to apply can be found here.

Fair Trade Fiesta is a celebration carnival parade and concert celebrating and highlighting Scotland as a Fair Trade Nation on World Fair Trade Day involving people of all ages and backgrounds. The aim of this event to raise more awareness on the Fair Trade movement through a vivid parade and an engaging FREE concert with The Red Hot Chilli Pipers headlining and with over 100 musicians taking part to support this event

If you are interested in signing up for the parade please contact Angela Higgins.

For more information about this event please visit http://www.handupevents.co.uk and/or https://www.facebook.com/handupevents/ or email Tania@handupevents.co.uk.

Come and be part of this amazing people lead revolution that has transformed Scotland into a Fair Trade Nation.

posted by Alita Spink, Schools and Learning Support Officer, Schools and Learning

A suite of anti-sectarian resources is now available on the hub. The resources offer a progression from early years to the senior phase. Find out more. 

posted by Ms Isabelle Gall, Principal Teacher Curriculum , Carnoustie High School

Alex and I are senior pupils at Carnoustie High School who have been awarded the life-changing opportunity to spend a year in Tianjin from September 2017.  Ever since beginning our Mandarin Adventure, Alex and I have become deeply immersed in many Chinese experiences and opportunities.  Alex and I were very lucky to be offered places in the CISS Summer Immersion trip 2016.  The two weeks became an unforgettable experience filled with culture, beautiful sights, language and more.

We have always been interested in Chinese language and culture; we had seized the opportunity to take it as a course at our school. Even though this was the beginning of my journey, it wasn’t until I had the honour of hosting the launch ceremony for Carnoustie High School to become the Confucius Hub for Angus Schools, that I really dedicated myself to the study of the Mandarin language.  Kevin Shand

Following our return from the summer course we decided to start a Chinese club for younger pupils in our school to share our experience of the rich and beautiful culture in China.  Currently our club boasts around 20 pupils and runs weekly.  So far we have not only taught them some Mandarin but we have also enjoyed teaching cooking, food tasting, art and games.  In addition to running the club we compiled a video and presentation about our time in China that was shown to the entire school and we hosted the Guangzhou Cantonese puppet show in our school.

I feel it’s important to get young people more involved in learning about other cultures, therefore it has been a delight bringing Chinese culture to our school.  The work we have done has encouraged many pupils to learn more and I hope that they are inspired to follow in our footsteps.  Alexandra McCombie