Tag: community

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

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.

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. 

Bantaskin Primary School Eats Sustainably

In August 2017 Alistair Findlay, acting principal teacher at Bantaskin PS began to work with primary 5, 6 and & 7 pupils on a “Good Food” project. This project developed from recommendations in the Better Eating, Better Learning document and was instigated by findings from the Healthy Living surveys which take place each year. Evidence from the 2017 survey showed that only 30% of primary 5-7 children were eating fruit daily, and only one fifth of pupils ate vegetables daily.

Alistair therefore saw potential to improve healthy eating habits across the school and the decision was taken to appoint a food technologist to support this aim. Alistair worked with a RACI group of colleagues to plan and teach a series of lessons which included:

  1. Learning about why it is important to have a balanced diet
  2. Learning about the Eat Well plate and recommendations
  3. Developing a range of skills for life including cooking & food preparation, horticulture and growing healthy ingredients for our cooking from seeds, etc.

A kitchen classroom was created within school to facilitate all of this learning and ensure that the new Food and Health experiences and outcomes and benchmarks could be addressed fully. This project extended to enabling parents to become involved in developing their cooking skills and cooking healthy, affordable meals within the school, gradually gaining a REHIS Elementary Cooking Skills Certificate. Susan Kennedy, NHS, supported Alistair and the group in designing this elementary course for parents. Jennifer Robertson from Quality Meat Scotland (QMS) also supported the school by cooking with parents one afternoon – a tasty beef stir fry resulting from this collaboration. Both parents and their children took a trip to Bonnyhill Farm to see where their food came from and gain a deeper understanding of the impact of food miles. This visit was supported by collaboration with RHET (Royal Highland Education Trust).

The project involved other partnership working, including Jamie Stevenson from Torwood Garden Centre who donated plants for the evolving “Growzone” – the name pupils gave to their school garden. The school also registered with the Royal Horticultural Society and within a single academic year, has achieved levels 1, 2 and 3 of the Gardening in Schools RHS Award.

A team of gardening parents and grandparents now maintain the school orchard as well as helping pupils with heavy labour required in their Growzone.  The success of the Growzone also benefits from weekly input from gardening volunteer Lorraine Milligan.  These collaborations have all extended pupil opportunities to develop skills beyond school and to gain a broader understanding of skills for work. In addition they have developed the ethos and life of their school as part of its community.

These collaborations have all extended pupil opportunities to develop skills beyond school and to gain a broader understanding of skills for work. In addition they have developed the ethos and life of their school as part of its community.

Yvonne McBlain popped in to get a flavour (no pun intended) of the impact all of this excellent work was having. She very much enjoyed seeing the school displays and awards gained, and meeting Gail Henderson, the school’s food technologist and the pupils she was working with. Primary 4 pupils had chopped & cut to make a cucumber and mint dip with the herbs from their garden. Throughout the school pupils look at and talk about their plants and garden during lunch times and breaks, they look after the garden well, pointing out when plants need water. They are also excited about harvesting their current crop and turning these into delicious meals and snacks.

Alistair and colleagues will harvest crops which mature over the summer and preserve these in the school freezer so that pupils can use these later in the session. Plans for next year include the building of a polytunnel so that children can sow and grow their  crops earlier and perhaps expand the range of things they can cultivate.

Community Resilience as part of Learning for Sustainability

@EdScotCommRes and #Resilience-Ed are useful Twitter sources of current ideas and thinking for building emergency planning/community resilience into Curriculum for Excellence. Eilidh Soussi, Community Resilience Development officer, Education Scotland, hosted an event on 4th December where a range of delegates explored how to build effective progression of pupils’ resilience into our education system nationally and locally.

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There was a particular emphasis on using the local context to enable young people to develop resilience, confidence and to feel connected and useful in their own community – and even in their own home. Yvonne McBlain represented Falkirk Council Children’s Services and will continue to support good practice, with Jane Jackson, Outdoor Learning Development Officer, and Fiona McLuckie, Emergency Planning Officer, Development Services. Interested practitioners can help with this by signing up for LfS 29 Emergency Planning – How does it fit with CfE? on 18th February 2016.

Click here to see Eilidh’s resource guide with useful links. Click here to view teaching resources in the Ready for Emergencies website – you may be interested in using the preparing for winter resources to help you build a strong and relevant interdisciplinary unit for your establishment. These resources help practitioners to develop the everyday resilience of young people, but also to progress their capacity to cope with unusual and unexpected emergencies they may encounter throughout their lives. Click here http://glo.li/1NbcKMs to see a video example showing how a geography lesson enabled a young girl to save the lives of her own family and other people on the beach during a tsunami!