This blog post collates information from the national Learning for Sustainability network for practitioners and senior managers working in Falkirk education establishments. It shares exciting new materials and information about the 26th UN Climate Change Conference of the Parties which takes place in Glasgow between 1st -12th November 2021 (known as COP 26 – click the image to visit the official site).

The five themes of this international event are:

• Nature
• Clean Transport
• Energy transition
• Adaptation and resilience
• Finance

This link will take you to a Tweet and video clip from the organisers of this event in which David Attenborough explains how vitally important its outcomes are. The Scottish Government commitment to the goals of COP 26 is shared via its Net Zero Scotland campaign which you can learn more about here.

Some of the many education resources for use with pupils connected to COP 26 may already have come to your attention. The links below take you to key national support and teaching materials which you can use as part of your usual curriculum content, or for any new subject-specific or interdisciplinary learning contexts you feel will engage your children and young people and contribute to their development of the four capacities of Curriculum for Excellence.

BIG NEWS The #CountdowntoCOP learning materials developed by Education Scotland are now live and can be accessed here . These will enable you to engage your learners with the big #COP26 themes of nature, energy, transport, finance, adaptation and resilience.

To view the recording of the 10.6.21 Education Scotland professional learning session about COP 26 please click here.

To view the Wakelet of resources and ideas created by the Education Scotland LfS team relating to COP 26 click here. 

To explore how you can combine COP 26 learning contexts with your pupils’ development of STEM skills, click here

To explore the professional learning and education resources provided by our Scotdec partners click here

Learn more about the Children’s Parliament Climate Change group, vision and aims by clicking here.

The EIS are offering a series of twilight professional learning webinars looking at the clinate emergency and the role of education and trade unions in tackling this – click here for more information.

Click here to learn more about the BBC Scotland Climate Tales writing competition for children and young people aged 5-16.

Click here to view an example of the data available about our planet from the NASA website. There is powerful data evidencing the current twin emergencies of climate change and loss of biodiversity including a range of satellite images comparing the same locations over time.

Argyll and Bute Council are hosting their first ever Education Climate Summit on 27th and 28th October – click here to find out more.

Education Scotland colleagues have set up a GLOW Learning for Sustainability Practitioner Network in MS Teams for practitioners/leaders with an interest in LfS and COP 26. Please use this code o4sj08j to join the network. This Glow LfS MS Teams space will be used to host drop-in sessions, provide support and signpost information/resources. This will also be a space for practitioners to connect with like-minded practitioners and share resources, ideas and practice.

Ian Menzies, senior development officer for Learning for Sustainability has created this power point presentation (narrated) which is a wonderfully broad overview of Learning for Sustainability and can be used by whole staff groups in education establishments to refresh and review LfS within their curriculum. Ian and colleagues are encouraging practitioners and senior leaders to use the LfS self-evaluation tooklit (click here ) to inform school improvement planning and help with this process.

And finally – for anyone in need of inspiration to do something about climate change – including those with a passion for sport – take a look at BBC Sport 2050 resources here. These include powerful video clips which explore how predicted impact of climate change will affect the sports we are most passionate about AND how sport is already being affected!

This blog post is the first of a series which will share specific Falkirk education establishment COP 26 teaching and learning. Please comment below or email jane.jackson@falkirk.gov.uk or yvonne.mcblain@falkirk.gov.uk to let us know what you are planning or what we can do to help!

Falkirk Children’s Commission – Children’s Rights and Engagement Group are recruiting staff, children and young people to help create our Falkirk Council and Partner organisation Integrated Children’s Services Plan. We are doing this partly because the Children and Young People (Scotland) Act 2014, Part 3 – Children’s Services Planning and Part 1 – Rights of Children,  requires Local Authorities and Health Boards, alongside their community planning partners, to improve outcomes for all children and young people in Scotland by ensuring that local planning and delivery of services is integrated and their rights upheld. However, we are also building this Falkirk Children & Young People’s Planning Team because we believe it is essential that pupils’ voices shape their education and life experiences, and because research shows that their participation in decision-making improves their academic performance and life chances. Learn more about the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (UNCRC – recently passed into Scottish Law) by clicking here or by visiting the pages of the Children and Young People’s Commissioner for Scotland here.

We will work with interested staff colleagues and the children and young people to create this plan and to design the processes needed to make the group and the work sustainable in the long-term. The children and young people joining this group will also plan and co-ordinate other tasks and initiatives. Our main aims are to:

1. Connect and co-ordinate pupil council and leadership groups in schools, across our health board, community and third sector organisations
2. Involve children and young people in shaping their own education, lives and communities through integrated organisational processes via our Members of Scottish Youth Parliament
3. Ensure that our group and processes are truly representative, inclusive and diverse
4. Establish processes which build children and young people’s voices and participation into all layers of our organisations without adding to bureaucracy.

To help staff in our early learning and childcare centres and schools connect this work with their curriculum, we are making it part of our wider Falkirk Learning for Sustainability Framework (click here for more information about the framework). Children’s Rights and political literacy are already built into the experiences and outcomes of Curriculum for Excellence and our framework includes plans and professional learning which early years officers and teachers can use. The work of the Falkirk Children & Young People’s Planning Team will be supported by Julie Williams our Rights Respecting Schools development officer alongside Fiona Malcolm, Faculty Head of Humanities, Braes HS. Fiona and Julie will liaise with schools and centres who are working towards Rights Respecting Schools Accreditation (click here for more information about this) and education support officers Yvonne McBlain and Jane Jackson will offer professional learning and co-ordinate the development of safe online collaboration via a Microsoft Team in Glow.

Please leave your comments below or email yvonne.mcblain@falkirk.gov.uk or jane.jackson@falkirk.gov.uk for more information or to help with this exciting work.

Callum MacLellan of Sustainability Scotland is helping to organise online events in the 8 electoral areas of Scotland where S5/6 school pupils ask questions of local representatives from the five main political parties. Climate change is the most important issue that faces humanity and it is vitally important that politicians take it seriously. On Friday 2nd April at 5pm young people from Central Scotland high schools will be quizzing local representatives from the 5 main political parties about climate change at an online event. You can watch this live by registering here , to stream live from Facebook click here and you can also watch later via YouTube here.

Please do what you can to spread the word so that as many people as possible (young and old) are aware of this opportunity to question political leaders about their views on climate change. Sustainability Partnerships would be happy to pass on urgent questions about climate change to the main Scottish political parties. Send these to: howard.beck@sustainabilitypartnerships.org.uk

As an integral part of our ‘LfS in Falkirk Framework’ we have started a series of CLPL courses aimed at practitioners and managers.  These courses will be introducing what we hope will be a useful framework for schools and practitioners to put LfS at the heart of planning, teaching and learning.

There are lots of other resources and materials which will help in this process, some of which are signposted below:

More information about the Falkirk LfS framework can be found here

Self evaluation tools:

The General Teaching Council for Scotland have a really useful, simple self evaluation wheel which very quickly helps you to identify what you are currently doing and where there might be potential gaps.

Self-evaluation Wheel: Learning for Sustainability | General Teaching Council for Scotland (gtcs.org.uk)

Education Scotland have produced a comprehensive self evaluation framework

There is also a summary version which can be accessed here

Professional responsibilities

The GTC for Scotland have produced a guide “to help you understand your responsibility to embed Learning for Sustainability in your practice, inspiring and motivating learners to address the challenges of learning to live within the environmental limits of our planet and to build a just, equitable and peaceful society.” Find out more via this link:

GTCS Professional Guide – LfS

Learning for Sustainability is integral to the GTCS Professional Standards Framework. Further information about this can be found on the link below.
What does LfS mean for me?

National guidance and further reading

There is a really useful summary of LfS resources on the The National Improvement Hub which can be accessed here

Exemplars 

There are some useful videos showcasing individual inspirational projects in schools linked to LfS. Click here to access them.

Scottish Government commissioned Edinburgh University to review literature relating to the educational impact of LfS.  The result was published in March 2020 and can be accessed here

“The findings are significant for both policy and practice as they position LfS as an excellent context through which all aspects of CfE can flourish, enabling learners to develop and display the values and dispositions outlined in its ‘four capacities’.”

In 2015 LfS was the subject of one of Education Scotland’s ‘Opening up Great Learning’ documents.  It is a great introduction to what LfS is all about as well as showcasing some examples of good practice and providing ideas for taking LfS forward.  The PDF can be accessed here

You can find the June Bulletin from LfS Scotland here.    It is full of information about training opportunities including Connecting Classrooms.

There is also an exciting opportunity for your pupils to get involved in a Dragon’s Den through Social Enterprise Academy

This post is designed to collate the many Learning for Sustainability teaching and learning resources available to practitioners during school closures as a result of Covid 19. Obviously most of these sources will still be relevant and accessible when we reach “the new normal”. Jane Jackson and Yvonne McBlain, curriculum support officers compiled these links and wish you and yours well during these challenging times. Please contact jane.jackson@falkirk.gov.uk with any queries you have and click as directed below to access each resource.

Click here to open the Sway presentation created to give you an overview of Learning for Sustainability as part of your whole-school curriculum – this presentation also provides links to key reading about LfS.

Click here to open the Sway presentation created by Yvonne and Jane to share the LfS bundle planning they are working on with practitioners in a few Falkirk schools. We will soon add a link to a new Learning for Sustainability Team where Falkirk practitioners and senior leaders can access these new plans and help us develop this key curriculum support.

Click here to browse outdoor learning specific support from our Outdoor Learning Blog

Click here to access a new Sway presentation which Yvonne has prepared to collate reading and policy documents about pupil voice, participation and empowerment. Pupil voice, rights, participation and citizenship are all part of Learning for Sustainability.

Education Scotland have a summary of all LfS support materials in the National Improvement Hub here.

Click here if you would like to take advantage of the British Council/UKAid CLPL opportunity for training in Learning for Sustainability- offer closes 30th April 2020

This link will take you to the support page of Keep Scotland Beautiful, and you may already have spottted their message regarding Green Flag/Eco Schools award submissions which you have pending.

Scotdec have a brilliant range of teaching and learning support materials available by clicking here. 

Social Enterprise Academy also offer resources and support online by clicking here and are exploring how their popular Dragons’ Den events can happen virtually and some of you may have been due to attend their awards ceremony – watch this space. Jane and Yvonne will update this post with further information – get in touch with any additional links or sources please.

On Wednesday 18th January 2016, Yvonne McBlain attended the Learning for Sustainability practitioner network meeting organised by Ian Menzies, Senior Development Officer, Education Scotland. The event lasted all day and was organised around short “spotlight” presentations by practitioners, followed by longer opportunities to talk with other delegates from around the country. The people delivering the spotlights represented each educational sector and were:

Anne O’Grady & colleagues from Chesters Nursery in Glasgow

Debra May from East Craigs Primary in Edinburgh

Sandra Buchan from Kemnay Academy in Aberdeenshire

Rebecca Chad from Pilrig Park School in Edinburgh

Each person described how they were taking the various elements of Learning for Sustainability forward in their establishment. Anne’s nursery were combining their LfS (especially their outdoor learning) with Health and well-Being (development of pupils’ mental, social, physical & emotional health). They had a range of projects designed to build up the Ethos and Life of their nursery, and increase family and community involvement.

Debra described her role as the leader of a RACI working group in her school, who were tasked with developing LfS across the school. She shared their progress so far. Sandra’s development of LfS as part of her secondary school development plan (she is faculty head of science) also overlapped with her subject-specific responsibilities. She is gradually building up colleague understanding of what LfS actually is, then supporting them in small projects which progress and enhance their pupil experiences. Sandra and Debra both described how some of their colleagues were planning interdisciplinary LfS teaching which linked to the Sustainable Development goals.

Rebecca had recently returned to her role as head teacher of Pilrig following a “Developing Scotland’s Young Workforce” secondment with Education Scotland. She shared some of the practice she had observed in that role, to illustrate how practitioners could also target skills for work when developing their LfS. She is working with colleagues to make LfS meaningful and enjoyable for her pupils with severe and complex educational needs. All of these practitioners would be happy to welcome visitors wanting to see their LfS in action.

During the discussion times, Yvonne was tasked with finding out how other authorities are supporting practitioners in their development of LfS. She met the Leaders of LfS Learning from Stirling council, who are now developing an LfS practitoner network across their schools. Colleagues from Highland Council and Dumfries and Galloway Council are working towards supporting and encouraging practitioners in similar ways. Everyone agreed that there is still a need to develop awareness of the many elements of Learning for Sustainability, and to reassure practitioners that they are already covering elements of it. Jane Jackson and Yvonne have been working with our own Falkirk LfS practitioner network for a few years now – initially focusing on Outdoor Learning. The next national practitioner network meeting takes place in Stirling Court Hotel in March.

Click here to join the national Learning for Sustainability network group in Glow – this will enable you to access resources, and connect with other practitioners working on LfS. Click here to see the presentation used during this meeting.