Author: Y. McBlain

Spring Clean Scotland 2025

We are thrilled to invite your school to participate in Spring Clean Scotland 2025, taking place from 21 March to 21 April 2025. This annual campaign, organized by Keep Scotland Beautiful, aims to unite over 50,000 volunteers across the country to tackle litter and enhance our beautiful environment.

Spring Clean Scotland 2025

Last year, over 100 litter picks were completed in the Falkirk Council area over the course of the campaign – can we smash that record this year???

Why Get Involved?

  • Educational Opportunities: Engage pupils in hands-on activities that teach the importance of environmental stewardship.
  • Community Impact: Contribute to a nationwide effort to keep Scotland clean and green.
  • Health and Wellbeing: Promote outdoor activity and community engagement among pupils.

Special Initiatives for Schools:

  • KSB Litter League 2025: From 17 March to 21 April, schools, nurseries, and youth groups can participate in a friendly competition to see who can collect the most litter. Winners will be recognized as #SpringCleanScotland champions!

Spring Clean Litter League

  • KSB Spring Clean Week Live Lessons: Scheduled from 17 to 21 March, these lessons focus on unique types of waste and emphasise the principles of Reduce, Reuse, Recycle. They are designed to align with various curriculum areas and include follow-up resources.

Spring Clean Live Lessons

  • Lessons from Falkirk Council Waste Services: Throughout the campaign and beyond, lessons/assemblies surrounding impacts of litter can be arranged for all age groups by emailing ross.guthrie@falkirk.gov.uk.

How to Get Involved

  • Plan Your Event – Organize a litter pick within your school grounds or local community.
  • Borrow Equipment – Falkirk Council Waste Services can provide litter pickers, hoops, bags, and hi-vis vests. Simply let us know when registering your litter pick and we’ll do our best to accommodate your needs.
  • Register Your Litter Pick with Falkirk Council – When you register your litter pick with Waste Services through the link below, we’ll sign you up as a participant in Spring Clean 2025:

Rubbish and litter: Organising a local clean up – Falkirk Council

By working together, we can inspire the next generation to care for and protect our environment. We hope your school will be part of Spring Clean Scotland 2025 and help make it the most impactful yet!

For any questions, please reply to this e-mail or contact waste.services@falkirk.gov.uk

Let’s work together to keep Scotland beautiful!

LitterLotto and LitterLotto Leagues – update

Young people from Falkirk High School have made very successful use of the LitterLotto app launched last November by Falkirk Council waste services. They are participating very effectively in the inter-schools competition enabled by this app (read more about the competition here).

A group of pupils binned so much litter that they won the autumn term prize for Falkirk HS – earning £200. Individually, Susie Hoggan and Ross Hamilton each won £20 for binning the most litter over these two months. Logan Marshall was even more successful – winning £100 in the Falkirk competition prize draw, AND £1000 in the UK draw. 

LitterLotto is not only for school pupils, the app is available to all members of the public – click here to find out more.

 

Spring 2025 LfS Update

National and Falkirk Learning for Sustainability News

The National Learning for Sustainability action plan aims for every 3-18 learning setting in Scotland to become sustainable by 2030 so that all learners receive their Learning for Sustainability entitlement. There are many resources available to support schools in embedding LfS across their curriculum including a self-evaluation and improvement framework which can be found here. Education Scotland has established a peer mentor programme to support all educational settings in developing their whole school approach to LfS. Our Falkirk LfS peer mentor is Samantha Wilson-McCaw, and she can support school or centre LfS leads one on one and/or work with larger groups of staff to support LfS in your curriculum. 

National Curriculum Review Developments – impact on LfS Audit Plans

Click here for updates on our Scottish Government’s review of Curriculum for Excellence. Education Scotland colleagues are leading the co-creation of our updated curriculum framework and Learning for Sustainability remains a core element of CfE. In the light of these developments, the audit of Learning for Sustainability within Falkirk  schools and centres has been postponed. Please use the following links to learn more about the scope and focus of this national review:

Falkirk Pupil Climate Summit

This year’s Falkirk Pupil Climate Summit will be held in early June at Falkirk High School. Each secondary school is asked to send up to ten delegates to represent their school at the summit. Further information about the event should reach you in the upcoming weeks. Read all about the 2024 Falkirk Climate Summit here, and click here to view the Falkirk Agreement reached by the young delegates who attended. At the instigation of our elected members, officers across Falkirk Council Services are working with staff and pupils in schools to realise the articles within the agreement. Progress made with this work will be shared at the 2025 Summit.

Rights Respecting Schools Accreditation and the UNCRC

We are delighted to report that Fiona Malcolm, Faculty Head of Humanities at Braes HS is currently seconded one day per week (Tuesday) to support schools and centres with their Rights Respecting Schools Accreditation process. She will also continue her valuable support and guidance for the UNCRC and Children’s Rights.

Social Enterprise Academy – 2025 Falkirk Dragon’s Den

We are liaising with colleagues in the Social Enterprise Academy(SEA) to prepare for our 2025 Falkirk Social Enterprise Dragon’s Den event. We hope to confirm a late September date for the event and SEA colleagues will lead a professional learning event on 20th March for Falkirk staff wanting to learn more about how to support pupils with their social enterprises. Falkirk schools and centres have completed many social enterprises within their communities and some have received national Social Enterprise Academy Awards. Please click here for more information via the flyer and register for the online introductory training session by emailing sarahrogerson@socialenterprise.academy.

Professional Learning Opportunities:

The International Sustainability Diploma will be available to all schools across Scotland for the upcoming 2025-2026 session. The Diploma, designed and run by The Futures Institute at Dollar Academy, is credit-rated at SCQF Level 6 and is worth 24 tariff points. More information is available here. To register, contact Smith-JA@dollaracademy.org.uk.

Development in Education Centre (DEC)S’ Learning for A Better Future fully-funded, year-long GTCS accredited Professional Learning programme applications for the next cohort beginning in April 2025 close 29.2.25. More information here: Learning for a Better Future 

Keep Scotland Beautiful: Learning for Sustainability / Eco-Schools (register here): 

  • 06/03    16.00-17.00       Exploring Litter and Waste from a Global Citizenship perspective 
  • 12/03    16.00-17.00       Learning for Sustainability & Systems Thinking 
  • 08/05    16.00-17.00       Eco-Schools & Your School Improvement Plan 

SCQF courses (Climate Emergency Training and Biodiversity Action, register here) 

19/03    16.00-16.45       Information session 

Facing History and Ourselves/Scotland’s Development Education Centres & other organisations: 

  1. Taking a Global Citizenship approach to primary science, Thurs, 27th Feb 
  2. Addressing Sexism and Gender-based Radicalisation Online, March 4th 
  3. Using Scotland’s new anti-racism resource (second and third level), Mon 10th March 
  4. Discussing Race & Racism in the Classroom, March 18th  
  5. Approaching the Israel-Palestine conflict in the classroom one year on 20th March
  6. A’Adam’s Bairns: exploring Scottish identity & diversity through music education 27th March

Live Lessons for Learners delivered by Keep Scotland Beautiful: 

  1. 17/03 -21/03/25    Spring Clean Week Live Lessons (including one lesson in Gaelic on 20/03) register 
  2. 12/05-16/05/25    Natural Scotland Week Live Lessons (including one lesson in Gaelic) register 
  3. 20/05/25    (13.30-14.15)   Live Lesson: Sustainable Celebrations register 

Teaching Resources – primary and secondary sectors unless otherwise noted: 

  • Facing History & Ourselves – Resource collection – Wide range of social justice-related lessons Teaching Resources | Facing History & Ourselves 
  • Development in Education Centre collection – resources relating to eco-anxiety – useful during Children’s Mental Health Week Climate Signposts Guide, Tackling Climate Anxiety, Exploring Climate Justice (secondary) 
  • 20th February World Day of Social Justice – selection of resources for use in the classroom: Respect for Diversity: antiracisted.scot, Empowering Young People as Active Citizens for primary and secondary , Equality and Human Rights from Amnesty 
  • International Mother Language Day celebrates linguistic and cultural diversity, These Clothing and Sustainable Food planners explore the intersection of language, culture, and global justice, helping students understand the importance of cultural respect. (scroll towards the bottom of the page to access the planners)  
  • The Sustainables Academy: Free Sustainability and Circular Economy Curriculum 
  • RHET (Royal Highland Education Society) range of professional learning here 
  • Outdoor Learning Directory here 

November 2024 LfS Update

  • Register here for our Falkirk Carbon Ready Classroom training for upper primary pupils between 9.15 and 2.45 pm on Thursday 28th November. This training is provided by Keep Scotland Beautiful colleagues and supports class teachers to work with their upper primary children to build a Carbon Ready Classroom(CRC) and become climate-informed together. The CRC experience can contribute to your school’s Eco Schools journey and supports upper primary teachers and their classes with this vital aspect of Learning for Sustainability.  The teacher support materials for this will be shared in advance of the training. Keep Scotland Beautiful are also offering a teacher training session for CRC Primary on Tuesday 5th November at 4pm, which teachers may want to attend if they missed our session in August. This is the Teams link to join the meeting: Click to join CRC Primary teacher training Tuesday 5th November 4pm.

 

  • Eco Schools Journey – The Eco school process has been simplified to make it less bureaucratic and more pupil-led. We cancelled our online Eco-schools training sessions for children and young people in October/November due to lack of uptake, but our Keep Scotland Beautiful colleagues will contact schools directly regarding alternative dates. A new Eco School Support channel has been created in our Falkirk Learning for Sustainability Team.

The new national Education Scotland LfS site is now live – this comprehensive resource is a key action within the LfS Action Plan Target 2030: A Movement for Change (launched June 2023). It supports practitioners by highlighting what LfS is, through the voices of learners and educators. Explore the landing page and resources here:

🔗 Learning for Sustainability Landing Page

🔗 Advice and Guidance

🔗 Professional Learning

🔗 Sharing Practice

We were delighted to see video from a number of our early years settings within these resources. Click here to watch Glenburn ELCC’s inspirational “Get messy and make mudpies” video. Well done all for sharing this brilliant work. Further examples of powerful LfS practice are being sought, so please contact LfS@educationscotland.gov.scot. if you have work that could inspire others.

  • Unfortunately, there is no Falkirk Social Enterprise Academy Dragon’s Den event this year but SarahRogerson@socialenteprise.academy can still be contacted regarding support for your social enterprise journey.
  • Secondary School Global Social Leaders membership – more information here about this interactive, project-based learning programme where students, aged 11-18, work in teams to design and deliver a social action project. Students will connect with others across the world to learn from each other’s social action journeys through live virtual sessions and student-led, self-paced activities that encourage autonomy and agency. The programme is designed to support problem-solving, communication, creativity, critical thinking, and collaboration, enabling students to adapt and thrive in life and the future world of work

And finally, we are asking all schools and centres to complete our first Falkirk Learning for Sustainability audit between October and December of this year. Yvonne McBlain will email head teachers and managers directly with the links to the staff and learner Microsoft Forms. The audit is designed to establish what LfS looks like in our schools and centres and how we can support you better. We have kept the questions as concise and purposeful as possible and will be very grateful for your responses.

LitterLotto League Launched by Falkirk Waste Services!

 

In May this year, Falkirk Council formed an exciting new partnership with LitterLotto (Peasy), giving individuals the opportunity to win cash prizes whilst keeping our community clean.  To complement this, we will be launching a secondary school litter league from November 2024.

The concept of this partnership revolves around incentivising the binning of litter on school grounds, and beyond, to promote a behavioural change and help keep our local communities clean and tidy.  The litter league will enable Falkirk Council secondary schools to compete against each other to bin the most litter in order to win prizes for pupils and the schools themselves!  Pupils can download the LitterLotto app on a smartphone, which will be linked to the school, and using the app’s camera function they can begin to photograph themselves binning litter and raise their school up the league standings.

Every month, the pupil who has binned the most litter in each secondary school will receive a £20 Scotland Loves Local gift card. Additionally, the top performing school at the end of each term will receive £200!

To ensure that the size of the school does not provide major advantages or disadvantages in relation to the term and overall prizes, we will be calculating this based on the number of entries/school roll.

To launch LitterLotto, Ross Guthrie, Falkirk Council Waste Services Education officer hopes to visit schools in November to explain how this initiative works to young people.

If you have any enquiries, please contact wasteservices@falkirk.gov.uk

September 2024 LfS Updates

  1. Eco Schools Journey – a new Eco School Support channel has been created in our Falkirk Learning for Sustainability Team (join code h7cr6l2). The Eco school process has been simplified to make it less bureaucratic and more pupil-led. Keep Scotland Beautiful will facilitate 2 online Eco-schools training sessions for children and young people between 1.30 – 2.30 pm on Thursdays 31st October and 14th November (your group need to attend both). Contact Yvonne McBlain by Monday 10th October to sign your class or Eco-group up and receive the links for these meetings.
  2. Our first Falkirk Carbon Ready Classroom training for teachers took place last week (a new collaboration with Keep Scotland Beautiful).  This training was provided to support class teachers of upper primary children who want to build a Carbon Ready Classroom(CRC) and become climate-informed together. The CRC experience can contribute to your school’s Eco Schools journey and supports upper primary teachers and their classes with this vital aspect of Learning for Sustainability.  The teacher support materials are in a CRC folder within the Eco Schools channel of our Falkirk LfS Team. Our CRC children’s training day is Thursday 28th November between 9.15 and 2.45 pm. Please email Yvonne McBlain by Monday 18th November to register your class for participation or to request another training session for staff.
  3. We are glad that our very own Falkirk LfS Peer mentor (and RMPS Teacher) Samantha Wilson-McCaw from Braes HS will continue in her role this term. Samantha is happy to engage with schools and staff who have LfS as an improvement priority this year.
  4. Our Falkirk Learning for Sustainability blog has been refreshed over the summer here. This is our space for sharing and celebrating good practice and valuable ideas relating to LfS so please email Yvonne to add a post about your work.
  5. News from Education Scotland LfS Team – The DECS have updated their Climate Justice through Human Rights education resource. It can be accessed through the resources section of our website, and directly: ttps://wosdec.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2024/07/ECJ-T5.pdf
  6. Education Scotland’s new webpage on Children’s Rights is available Children’s rights in Scotland | Resource Themes | Education Scotland
  7. Social Enterprise Academy support opportunities – 26.9.24 teacher information session on Preparing for an SEA Dragon’s Den PLUS Understanding Social Enterprise – 18.9.24, 4- 5 pm – both online. Practitioners should register by emailing SarahRogerson@socialenteprise.academy
  8. Secondary School Global Social Leaders membership – more information here about this interactive, project-based learning programme where students, aged 11-18, work in teams to design and deliver a social action project. Students will connect with others across the world to learn from each other’s social action journeys through live virtual sessions and student-led, self-paced activities that encourage autonomy and agency. The programme is designed to support problem-solving, communication, creativity, critical thinking, and collaboration, enabling students to adapt and thrive in life and the future world of work
  9. Falkirk Secondary Schools Climate Summit takes place in Braes HS on 18th This event was organised by young people in Braes and Falkirk High Schools and delegates from each secondary school have been invited to attend. Yvonne contacted cluster chairpeople to invite primary pupil representation, but this does not appear feasible this year. We look forward to their involvement next time.
  10. John Muir Award – Information about changes to the running of the award: The John Muir Trust is redesigning and improving the John Muir Award – aiming to launch in 2025. Updates on progress through the autumn and winter via website and Award e-Bulletin. Due to the current challenging financial environment the Trust is making the following changes to how they run the John Muir Award:
    • No new Proposal Forms for the Award are being accepted at this time.
    • Any Proposal Forms that have already been received by the Trust will be reviewed and registered, providing Award Criteria can be met and the Awards are intended to be completed by 1st September 2024.
    • Upon Award completion, where registered participants have achieved the Award Criteria, electronic certificates in PDF format will replace hard copy certificate

11. The Scottish Government  have released this information and this toolkit to support Scotland’s Climate Week and climate action across the country:

Scotland’s Climate Week, held annually since 2016, brings together communities and organisations across the country to support climate action. This year, Climate Week will take place from 23 – 29 September. The focus of the week is on sharing “Stories for Change”, and we’ve created a toolkit for early learners, schools and caregivers, to get involved in this fantastic opportunity.

And finally, we hope to have your support with our first Falkirk LfS audit between October and December of this year. The audit is designed to establish what LfS looks like in our schools and centres and how we can support you better. We’ll keep it short and snappy but thought you’d like to know it was on its way.

Secondary Schools Energy Reduction Competition

Sharing the energy reduction challenge

Between October 2024 and March 2025 Falkirk Secondary Schools will compete to see which school can reduce their gas and electricity use the most. This competition will be led by a group of young people in each school who will be supported by a teacher and other staff members.

Prizes:

  • The school which reduces their unit usage most will receive £2000
  • For second place it’s £1000
  • And for third place £500
  • There will be other prizes
  • Prizes will be awarded at a ceremony in May/June 2025

The challenge to reduce carbon emissions and energy units/costs was issued by the Falkirk Council Place Services Extended Management Team. Our Falkirk Council Climate Change team are working with Children’s Services Learning for Sustainability colleagues to support schools with their efforts to reduce energy use.

Scroll down to explore the support which is available to staff and pupils taking part.

The Climate Change team support for young people and their adult:

  • We have created this guidance for the competition lead teacher or person in each school.
  • We will lead an information session for lead staff members on 17th September 4 – 5 pm via Microsoft Teams. (Lead staff members should sign up via CPD Manager code LfS 6-25).
  • Each school can have one remote or in-person lesson for their class or group of young people (just email climatechange@falkirk.gov.uk with 3 potential dates and times). 
  • We will provide access to a platform where you can access past, present and real time information about each schools’ energy use.
  • This webpage will include the leader board information and monthly energy use reports for each school. 
  • We are happy to offer advice and support at any point via email climatechange@falkirk.gov.uk .

SSI Learning for Sustainability & Digital Learning Team Support – what’s available?

This project fits beautifully with our Falkirk Learning for Sustainability Framework bundle 1 – exploring sustainable practices. Yvonne McBlain can support pupil voice or eco groups and staff members who lead this challenge. She can help them to plan & document this learning if needed and has created this interdisciplinary starter plan which captures the learning and skill development young people could gain from their participation.

Our digital learning team have created this document. to help with digital campaigning also.

Victoria Primary 6/7 S’mores and Hot Cocoa

Primary 6/7 children from Victoria PS took part in the Falkirk Social Enterprise Dragon’s Den event in November 2023. They pitched their social enterprise idea so well, that they won seed funding of £100 from the dragons. They wrote this blog post to tell everyone about their achievement.

We used the seed funding to organise an event in December for parents, carers and pupils in our school.  This took place at Christmas time, and we made and sold gingerbread men and candy cane gifts. We even had edible reindeer with twiglet antlers to give away free! Our food was so popular that we raised around £400. After the Christmas event we went around all classes to find out how to make our next event better. Some children told us to have a bigger choice of treats and to have more things that were free.

We decided to donate the money we made from these events to a charity called Victim Support Scotland (VSS).  We chose this charity because our school has been vandalised and VSS help anyone who has been affected by crime.

 

We took the advice of our fellow pupils then worked with primary 7M to organise more activities for our next event at Easter. We made Easter themed treats this time including cookie s’mores. We made sure that we had Halal food available and organised boxes so that those who were fasting for Ramadan would enjoy theirs at the right time. We sold hot chocolate, tea, coffee and cold drinks. Lots of our customers wanted water to drink and we had to keep going to get more to meet this demand. This was only one of the problems we had to solve, Another was not getting too stressed when long queues formed.  At this event we also held a raffle, and sold second hand books.

Our final event will take place on the second last day of term. We will make s’mores and cocoa for primary 7 parents and carers and primary 5, 6 and 7 pupils.

What have we learned from doing this social enterprise work?

  1. Counting and using money
  2. Responsibility
  3. Kindness
  4. Confidence in speaking to people
  5. Resilience (we learned from our mistakes to make the events get better each time)
  6. Problem-solving

How do we feel about getting a social enterprise award?

  • We feel good.
  • We feel proud that we have a Social Enterprise Award plaque in our school reception.
  • We loved using some of our earnings to treat our class to a Dominos pizza.

We would love to do more social enterprise next year when we are in primary 7. Thank you for reading this blog post about our award.

Social Enterprise Success for young people at Carrongrange High School

 

 

Young people in S 4 and 5 at Carrongrange HS received their Social Enterprise Academy(SEA) award at a glitzy ceremony in Edinburgh in June 2024. This builds on their 2023 Scotland’s Most Enterprising School Award and shows that enterprise is at the heart of the curriculum in Carrongrange. Young people and staff working across the school are involved in multiple enterprising experiences which include:

  1. Lifelong learning groups timetabled each Friday
  2. Three young enterprise teams programme groups working towards their SCQF level 3 qualification
  3. Running a “Cosy Cafe”
  4. Developing links with community organisations such as Cunningham Care Home and D2 Art Studio
  5. Forming a Makaton choir which has performed at Murrayfield Stadium

These experiences contribute to the ethos and life of the school and young people’s personal achievements – preparing them for life and work beyond school.

The social enterprise award preparations began when these various groups pulled together their various enterprises under the banner of “Caring Grange”.  A representative group of 11 young people delivered their pitch at the Falkirk Dragon’s Den event in November 2023. They received seed funding for the next phase of their fund raising in order to stage their Caring Grange event in February 2024. They were supported by their social enterprise adviser who was full of admiration for the variety and scope of their work.

Jamie is one of the young people who attended the SEA awards ceremony and has just moved into S6. He shared how busy it was in the Assembly Rooms venue on the day, and how the group set up their stall in the market place. He said that the group went on stage in front of around 500 people to receive their certificate and have their photo taken.

Although a representative group of young people were able to attend the Dragon’s Den and award ceremony, many senior phase young people were involved in the February Caring Grange event. It raised hundreds of pounds towards the cost of an electric, accessible school mini bus, whilst achieving its main purpose of bringing the wider community together,  and was so successful that it will become an annual event.

When asked how he felt about being part of the Caring Grange enterprise and what he’d learned, Jamie reported feeling good about the whole experience. He noted that he’d had to develop his selling, communication and money-handling skills. He also felt that he’d used his imagination and become part of his community. Mala is also in S6 and she also enjoyed the whole experience. She relished and was extremely good at her meeting and greeting role on the day of the Caring Grange event.

Exciting Partnership with Social Enterprise Academy

Social Enterprise Academy Scotland is a social enterprise organisation which “enables every young person to step up, realise their potential, and create the change they want to see in the world.”

Practitioners and senior leaders in Falkirk Children’s Services can get more information here and can also access professional learning offered in collaboration with Social Enterprise Academy (SEA) via CPD Manager.

Practitioners in some Falkirk schools have already signed up for support from SEA and will take part in our very first Falkirk SEA Dragon’s Den event on 4th November 2022 at Larbert High School. This event provides an opportunity for pupils to pitch a social enterprise idea to a panel of dragons in the hope of winning seed funding to support the growth of their social enterprise idea. These events can be incredibly inspiring for young people, to meet and network with likeminded peers, but also to engage in something they are truly passionate about and to have meaningful social or environmental impact.

SEA deliver pupil workshops to help school groups develop their enterprising ideas in preparation for the Dragon’s Den. The workshops are delivered by experienced facilitators, who are either social entrepreneurs in their own right, or have experience working within social enterprises. At this stage, the groups are expected to pitch their social enterprise ideas – meaning there is no need to have their social enterprise operational or established before the event. This support is all free to schools because it is fully funded by the Scottish Government and you can watch the promo video here from a recent Dragons’ Den in Glasgow. Click here to see SEA Getting Ready for the Falkirk Dragons Den PDF.