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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.

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.

 

Working in Partnership – Scotdec

Our LfS partners are an essential part of our LfS Framework in Falkirk and there are so many great resources out there to support schools and ELCCs with the LfS bundles.

One of our key partners – Scotdec continues to offer brilliant courses and resources to support our practitioners.

Click here   to see the wide range of CLPL courses which Scotdec are offering in September and October 2022. October is Black History month, and this link shares excellent resources for anti-racist education. The image headlining this post also gives details of our upcoming LfS celebration and showcase event in November. Please sign up to attend, or get in touch if you have practice you’d like to share.

Over the years we have also had several Falkirk teachers taking part in a year long CLPL opportunity which is accredited by GTC Scotland and the feedback has been really positive.  More information can be found in this flyer but be quick as the closing date for applications is 19th September!

 

An exciting new initiative this year has been the development of a resource which will allow staff to access a wide range of materials which have been mapped by Scotdec to our 5 LfS bundles.   This canva is an excellent resource which assist planning our LfS bundles.

Creative Tools Which Teach Pupils about Biosecurity

Pupil power takes saving our seabirds to another level

Online education resources designed by school children launched by conservation project

RSPB Scotland is encouraging primary schoolteachers to inspire Scotland’s young nature conservationists to save our seabirds by signing up to a free education resource.

Designed by pupils for pupils, with the support of RSPB Scotland’s Education, Youth & Families team, the resources are all available in English, Gaelic and Welsh. They have been produced as part of the Biosecurity for LIFE project which is working to raise awareness of the threat of invasive predators to seabirds and put in place systems to prevent their accidental introduction to islands. Click here to watch a short video which explains this biosecurity threat.

The education resource pack is available here, and includes online modules including:

  • an online snakes and ladders style game created by pupils from Small Isles and Raasay Primary – the aim of of the game is to collect as many eggs as possibly whilst avoiding predators,
  • a module showing how pupils launch a campaign to share this important conservation story
  • a free physical board game designed by pupils from Small Isles Primary with the aim of eradicating rats from islands.

For more information on the six modules, visit http://www.biosecurityforlife.org.uk/educaton. Click here to read the full press release about how the resources were developed. The programme is easy to navigate and celebrates the creative ideas of children as a way to teach school pupils about biosecurity.. If you would like to sign up to this FREE programme, please fill in and return the request from attached to educationscotland@rspb.org.uk and we will get it sent out in the post. Please note, the board game is part of module 3 of the programme and there is a digital snakes and ladders game included as well. 

Bintastic names for Falkirk Council’s waste vehicles

Waste Services and Street Cleansing want to say a huge thank-you to all the schools that participated in our Name the Vehicle competition.

Thanks to the creativity from both High School and Primary pupils, we now have 24 vehicles with names such as:

  • The Trashinator
  • Binnie the Pooh
  • Bin Kardashian
  • Sweeping Beauty
  • Lightning McClean
  • Bindianna Jones

 

Our overall favourite was from Archie from St Margaret’s PS, who named one of the scarabs ‘Haggis, Sweeps and Tatties’. He is pictured below with Gordon Ross, from Falkirk Council.

Keep your eyes peeled for the rest of the vehicles when you see them!

 

It’s Time for Spring Clean 2022

Litter levels in Scotland are at their worst in a decade. Research from Keep Scotland Beautiful shows that 88% of Scots agree that litter is a problem across Scotland, and 70% are concerned about the problem in their area.

The Spring clean runs from the 21st  March to the 21st April 2022 and is the perfect opportunity to make a difference by picking up litter from your playground, beach, streets, parks and beyond.

We know young people feel strongly about caring for the environment and want to do something about the harmful effects of litter on their communities. Every action, however small, makes a difference. Just half an hour of picking up litter and disposing of it safely can help an area look cleaner and feel safer, and evidence shows it also prevents more litter being dropped.

45,000 people volunteered their time to do a litter pick during Spring Clean in 2019 and this year, we want to encourage as many schools as possible to take part!

Use the hashtags #SpringCleanFalkirk to showcase what you and your school are doing to get involved!

How to get involved:

Falkirk Council specific events

  • Organise a Clean Up. Register your litter pick at Rubbish & litter – Organising a local Clean Up | Falkirk Council with the reference ‘Spring Clean’ to support individuals, groups and schools with organising their own Clean Up activity. We will register your event with keep Scotland Beautiful so you don’t have to.
  • Create a Litter Prevention Action Plan. Sign up to our help session (date and time will be confirmed closer to event) to hear about previous schools’ experience with their Action Plans and what you need to do to create one.
  • Listen to our pre-recorded session. This session will be uploaded to the website closer to the event and will feature what specific actions are being done across Falkirk to tackle litter, flytipping and dog fouling.
  • Use hashtag #SpringCleanFalkirk or #CleanUpFalkirk for all Spring Clean activity.

  Keep Scotland Beautiful events:

  • Pledge the number of bags. As part of the #BigBagChallenge, fill out the pledge form (will be uploaded on website closer to the date), and pledge the bags you will collect.
  • Join a public event listed. The Clean Up Scotland map will have public facing events individuals can join.
  • Complete a survey in your community. If individuals can’t do a Clean Up then they can always help Keep Scotland Beautiful by gather data using the citizen science toolkit.
  • Tune in to the Litter and Waste live lessons. During the Spring Clean, Keep Scotland beautiful will be investigating about the harmful effects of litter on wildlife, why modern plastics are such a problem when disposed of incorrectly, and how litter dropped on land ends up in the sea.

Dandelion Project

All Falkirk secondary schools, and their associated primaries,  have been invited to take part in this exciting, fully funded, food growing initiative.  The Dandelion Schools’ Growing Initiative (DSGI) will take place between April and September 2022 across Scotland and will involve 500 invited schools.

There are free resources, including a specially designed vertical growing cube, tattie growing packs, training materials and support packs.  More information can be found in the  Dandelion Schools Brochure. 

 

Falkirk schools have until the 10th February to register. 

This would be a great transition project and could be led by a secondary faculty, LfS lead, ECO or similar pupil led group, or maybe a team of secondary staff whose subject areas link with the project aims.

If anyone would like to discuss this further contact jane.jackson@falkirk.gov.uk  or  yvonne.mcblain@falkirk.gov.uk

Introducing our Litter and Waste Education Enforcement Officer

Ella Gorman is our Falkirk Council Waste Services and Litter Education Enforcement Officer. She can support learning about litter and its impact on our communities for Primary and Secondary schools. This includes lessons on litter, recycling and overall waste reduction (virtually or in person when possible). Ella has currently worked with 10 primary schools and 2 high schools to create their Litter Prevention Action Plan and to support local litter picks. Ella has compiled the following information about how she can help and she can be reached via this link.

 

Say no to litter!
Litter is dangerous, disgusting and damages our Falkirk communities. The environment is something we need to take care of and keeping Falkirk clean and tidy has never been more of a priority.

Falkirk Council has a 5 year Litter Strategy and Litter Prevention Action Plan to support recycling, litter and waste reduction (click here to view). It outlines the steps we want to take to encourage a joint responsibility over Falkirk’s streets, towns and green spaces so that everyone can enjoy their local environment. Litter ruins the environment and our local communities, and we want to work with schools, businesses, community groups, landowners and individuals to take pride in their communities and keep Falkirk litter free.

Waste Services are currently working with schools to spread the slogans ‘bin it’ and ‘take litter home’. By supporting the creation of artwork, giving litter presentations and helping to organise litter picks we encourage pupils across Falkirk to respect and value the environment and their local community.

 

How can we support you? We can: 

  1. Deliver lessons about litter and waste
  2. Support litter picks
  3. Loan litter pick equipment
  4. Get involved with waste and recycling projects
  5. Help create your school Litter Prevention Action Plan
  6. Help define your Litter Prevention Action Plan actions

Use the contact link here to see how we can help support your school in the fight against litter.

 

Carronshore Primary Pupils Visit COP 26

Staff and pupils at Carronshore PS have been learning about climate change recently. A group of pupils were lucky enough to go to Glasgow and attend a session at the Science Centre during Cop 26. They shared their experience with their whole school at assembly, and this blog post is written using their words. Click here to watch their Twitter video.

Oliver explained that there was a virtual experience at Cop 26.

“We put on a virtual reality headset and saw lots of children. There was a lot of litter on the floor. It was showing what is happening to our planet and our environment. They were carrying a lot of bags and they were full of crisp packets, cans, plastic bottles and clothes.
We need to take more care of our community and area. Rubbish was blasting through the air, going into the ocean.
The children left the rubbish and went away because the rubbish bins were full. We need to get more bins and continue to keep picking up rubbish and recycling it.
I also learned about sea levels rising because the climate is changing rapidly. This is because of ice falling into the seas and melting in the water. This is causing floods and islands are getting swallowed by the rising seas.”

Liam told everyone about the tree of promises.

“At Cop 26 we added our very own promises to the tree of leaves. Jordan promised to walk more. Ava promised to recycle more. Lila promised to use less energy, and Ben promised to park+ stride more.
All the promises were taken to the blue zone to let the global leaders know what promises we want them to make and keep. That gave us an idea. We think each area could make their own tree of promises. We want to see you all getting involved.”

Lily May told everyone that “Tim Peake the famous astronaut was visiting Cop 26 a few days later. There was a chalkboard where we could leave some questions for him. I asked if climate change affects space. Some of our pupils told a news reporter what Cop 26 means to them. You can see them on our Twitter feed.” LInk here.

Jamie thought “at first that we wouldn’t be able to do it but if we start now we can work together. We might be able to do it by 2023. If the adults get rid of the buildings we don’t need, the young ones can grow plants which will absorb the CO2.”

Corey shared that “Since I have been at Cop 26 I have thought about how the world has started to go green and battle climate change. It is also good that the world leaders are starting to listen to lots of young people. At Cop 26 there were lots of people trying to make a change which is very good to see and gives us lots of hope. Even though one person can’t make a change, a lot could.”

Staff and pupils at Carronshore use regular Talking Circle meetings to think about what their Cop 26 legacy could be. At the last Talking Circle they discussed how they could make a difference at Carronshore, and identified these three focus tasks:

1. Meat Free Mondays
2. Recycled Water Bottles
3. Waste free packed lunches.

The assembly closed with the following call to action for everyone at Carronshore PS 

“We are hoping that each area will take on one of these campaigns. Our Captains, Prefects and P7 Assistants will be on hand to support you in making a difference. Working together we can do our bit NOW to help protect our planet for the FUTURE.”

 

Introducing our Falkirk Council Climate Change Team

What is the latest international data on climate change and how can it be accessed?

The IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change) published the technical report on the impact of humans on climate change on 9th August 2021 (headline statements available here). As part of their 6th International Assessment Review of climate change, they have shared their data via an interactive digital atlas available here.

Why did Falkirk Council create a Climate Change Team?

Globally the aim is to maintain a limit to the temperature increase that the planet will undergo as a result of emissions into our atmosphere. The best-case scenario is limiting this to 1.5 degrees to mitigate the worst of a systematic collapse of our ecosystems.

The Paris Accord agreement was ratified at the last Climate Conference of Parties (COP 24) in 2013 and established a carbon budget amount of emissions required for each country to meet this 1.5 degree limit. Falkirk Council received a carbon budget to last until 2050, but (as the largest emitter in Scotland) exhausted this in 2020.

The Climate Change Team

Mari-Claire Morgan is the Lead Climate Change Officer for Falkirk Council working with a 5 person team on all issues relating to energy efficiency and climate change/adaptation. The climate change team work with all services across the Council, but here are some of the ways in which they may be able to support Children’s Services, your school/setting, and you as a practitioner or senior leader.

  1. acting as a valuable resource to help practitioners, ELCCs and schools directly with projects, information and support.
  2. working directly with us/you to find ways to reduce the council’s/your school’s/centre’s impact of emissions
  3. helping us/you to find ways to embed climate change ideas and actions into daily life/routines
  4. connecting us with our community partners in the Falkirk Area.
  5. providing practical support with planning and resourcing related teaching and learning
  6. developing policies and strategies and making sure these relate to national education policies and corporate Council requirements.
  7. showcasing the ways in which your school/setting/pupils and staff are working to reduce your emissions impact.

Jane Jackson and Yvonne McBlain, education support officers with Falkirk Children’s Services were delighted to meet with the team in June 2021. They are currently exploring how collaborating further could enhance our Falkirk Learning for Sustainability Framework and the ways in which teaching and learning can be linked to COP 26 in Glasgow in November 2021 (see our COP 26 support post here).

How are the team already engaging with education staff and pupils?

The Climate Change Team engage regularly with staff and young people from our secondary schools in the Climate Change Action Cross-party Working Group. Elected members of our Council attend these meetings to ensure that pupil’s thoughts and opinions relating to climate change initiatives are built into Council policy. This work connects with UNCRC and pupil participation/voice developments within Children’s Services and the Children’s Rights and Engagement Group (more information about this work here). Jane and Yvonne are working with colleagues and the climate change team to align and streamline these very similar workstreams to integrate UNCRC and pupil participation/voice across our service and council.

Some of the other ways in which the team can help:

  • Look at curricular materials for students (primary and secondary)
  • Deliver various themed engagement workshops (All levels of teaching/ primary and secondary pupils)
  • Be part of school events such as ‘World of Work Week’ ‘Earth Hour’ ‘Climate Week’
  • Help with energy audits (in a similar version to ECO Schools)
  • Assist with Eco School objectives
  • Present energy use in buildings (both to pupils, as well as, teachers)
  • Work with schools to look at reducing their emissions impact both in terms of occupancy behaviour and energy consumption

Comment below or find out more by emailing: yvonne.mcblain@falkirk.gov.uk or jane.jackson@falkirk.gov.uk