Category Archives: Social Studies

Art, Art and Design, Primary schools, Scotland Colleges, Social Studies

I HEART SCOTLAND

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The Travelling Gallery’s Spring 2014 exhibition, I HEART SCOTLAND, is a solo show and takes a refreshing look at how contemporary artist Rachel Maclean, has chosen to explore her ideas about Scottish national identity.

Issues around power, culture, politics and history are raised together with romanticism and folktales – all through Rachel’s ingenious use of costume performance, digital photography, film and installation.

By means of dark humour and remarkable technical skills, Rachel offers insightful and shrewd observations on these and other significant themes, creating a complex and surreal vision of modern Scotland in what is certainly an important year for people to ponder its future.

The I HEART SCOTLAND exhibition includes work that was commissioned, published and produced by Edinburgh Printmakers Workshop for her very successful exhibition there during the 2013 Edinburgh Art Festival.

So far, touring mainly to Secondary schools, we have visited venues accross Angus, Edinburgh, Midlothian and the Highlands where the installation has stimulated lots of discussion and created quite a buzz of excitement amongst pupils and teachers alike. Look at our website to see where we will be for the next leg of the tour…

Art, Primary schools, Secondary schools, Social Studies

THIS LAND – 2013 Autumn Tour

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To coincide with the Year of Natural Scotland, the Autumn 2013 exhibition in the Travelling Gallery brought together the work of a range International artists, both well-extablished and up-and-coming; chosen for their fascination with aspects of the Scottish landscape. The gallery contained a collection of artworks to captivate, resonate and inform –  initiating lots of observations and discussion from all different ages and abilities. There were 5 main artists exhibiting: Henry Coombes,  Andy Holden,  Hannah Imlach,Michael Reisch and Iain Sarjeant. The exhibition was accompanied by a complementary programme, which included the Beta Band music video ‘ Inner Meet Me’ by John Maclean and ‘ Wish You Were Here’, a series of 16 postcards by Francis Davies as well as a selection of artist books and sketchbooks by recent graduates.

Areas visited by the gallery with THIS LAND included Shetland, South Ayrshire, Renfrewshire, Lewis, Harris and the Uists and the Highlands.

For further information check out our website

Community Learning and Development, Competition, Health and Wellbeing, Science, Secondary schools, Social Studies, Technologies

Lantra Secondary School Awards now open for nominations!

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Lantra Scotland, the sector skills council for the land-based and aquaculture industries, is seeking early nominations for their Secondary School Awards which take place at the Land-based and Aquaculture Learner of the Year Awards in early 2015. The award is open to both urban and rural secondary schools with the winning school in each category receiving £250.00.

The Secondary School Awards recognise school projects and activities which support and encourage increased knowledge and understanding in rural learning. To highlight and celebrate the success of school initiatives, Lantra has brought forward the closing date for nominations this year to 16th May 2014. This will allow the judging panel to visit the nominated schools during the Spring season, enabling them to get a more comprehensive look at the entrants and their respective projects in full bloom.

The award finalists will be announced at Lantra Scotland’s stand at the Royal Highland Agricultural Show on Thursday 19th June, and the winning schools will be announced at the award ceremony and gala dinner early in 2015.

For more information about the Secondary School Awards and to access a downloadable nomination form please visit:

http://www.lantra.co.uk/Downloads/Scotland/LBLOYA-2015-Schools-nomination.aspx.

For all other enquiries please contact Lantra Scotland on tel: 01738 646 762 or e-mail lantra.scotland@lantra.co.uk

Primary schools, Secondary schools, Social Studies

Aye, Naw, Mibbe Hub Now Live!

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Aye Naw Mibbe is a new website from the Scottish Youth Parliament designed to offer young people an online hub for information on voting ahead of the European elections, the referendum on Scotland’s constitutional future and the General Election 2015.

The hub provides an opportunity for young people, and those who work with young people, too access information on their terms and is a place to pose questions, share ideas and access impartial information about civic participation and registering to vote. The hub will respond to queries, debates and FAQs to ensure young people have access to the details they need, when they want them.

Young people can get involved by:

  • Sending a question;
  • Writing a blog;
  • Running an event or hustings in their local area and encouraging other young people to get involved in the debate;
  • Hosting an interactive session on what voting and politics means for young people in their area.
Competition, Creative Partners, Literacy and English, Primary schools, Secondary schools, Social Studies

Scotland’s Stories of Home

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Scottish Book Trust has launched an exciting new writing project to encourage pupils and teachers across Scotland to write about what home means to them, with a selection of entries to be published in a free e-publication. Scotland’s Stories of Home will run from 23 March – 30 June, and in that time Scottish Book Trust wants to build a written picture of what Scotland means to the children who live here. Is it your house, your home town, your home team or your homeland? Is it your family, your friends or your online community?  Is it a smell, a taste, a sound or a sensation?

Submissions should be personal pieces of writing about real-life experiences and should be no longer than 1000 words. They can be written in a variety of different forms, such as a story, poem, song lyrics, a rap, a letter or even diary entry, and should be submitted via the Scottish Book Trust website. To help school pupils contribute their responses, Scottish Book Trust has designed a resource pack full of activity suggestions, aimed at primary and secondary school teachers and librarians who would like to use the Scotland’s Stories of Home project in their school. The resources are available at scottishbooktrust.com/storiesofhome.

With enjoyment and choice at the heart, these resources will help pupils of all abilities develop writing, research and talk skills while exploring the objects, places or concepts that mean most to them. A selection of pupils’ stories, chosen by a panel of young people, will be published in a free e-publication available to download during Book Week Scotland 2014.

Community Learning and Development, Creative Partners, Science, Social Studies

Sustainable Arts: Support and Training

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Measuring and reporting your environmental performance is an increasingly critical part of running an arts organisation and/or venue.

Aside from the obvious environmental and cost-saving benefits, improving your environmental performance helps to build stronger relationships with funders, artists, participants, suppliers, touring promoters, staff and audiences.

Creative Carbon Scotland currently works with over 100 arts organisations in Scotland, supporting them to engage with and work towards a more sustainable Scotland. This includes running year-round training workshops and support programmes across Scotland which provide organisations with the tools and knowledge they need to measure and reduce carbon emission from energy, water, waste and travel.

We are keen to ensure that our work is available to as wide a range of arts and cultural organisations as possible and want to hear from any arts organisation, individual artists and venues who would like to make use of this service.

Click here to register with us now to get started or contact Fay Butler at fay@creativecarbonscotland.com to find out more.

We look forward to hearing from you!
Competition, Outdoor learning, Primary schools, Science, Secondary schools, Social Studies

Would you like to win £1000 for your school or group?

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Enter Scotland’s Environment Website Youth Discussion competition by 31 March for a chance to win.

We have £1000 to award to the best school/group entry and £100 for the best individual entry. We have lots of other exciting prizes including HP tablets, educational experience days with a “green” theme, a backstage tour of The Hydro and tickets to the Irn Bru Carnival 2014.

To enter, just answer the following question: “What needs to change in your local community that will make a positive difference to your environment and what role can you play in making it happen?”then submit your answer in an imaginative way.

Follow the link for further information about this competition and to get an entry form:www.environment.scotland.gov.uk/yd

The competition is easy to enter and is relevant to many areas of the curriculum including drama, art, science, English and even modern languages.  This means entering the competition can easily be dovetailed into current project work or class topics.   The competition entry rules are very flexible which enables teachers to choose the level of input they feel is appropriate and suitable for their pupils. A number of useful teaching aids and resources have been developed that provide a good starting point.

You can choose to present your answer in a number of formats from a simple drawing, painting or report to something more complex such as a video, website or photographic essay; be as creative as you want!

The competition is open to all young Scots aged between 5 and 18 years old and you can enter as an individual or as a group e.g. Eco Group, class, youth group. The closing date is 31 March 2014 so there is still time to enter – what are you waiting for?

Your entry may also be eligible for the Young Reporters for the Environment competition. It is being run in Scotland by Keep Scotland Beautiful and is open to young people aged 11 to 21 years.

Competition, Primary schools, Secondary schools, Social Studies, Technologies

Cannes-struther International Short-Film Festival!

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Please find below information regarding an exciting project that we are undertaking here at the Scottish Fisheries Museum in Anstruther, Scotland.

For Festival of Museums 2014 and to accompany our new exhibition ‘Distant Shores’, we will be holding a mini-international film festival, on the theme of coastal life.

The competition culminates in a glamorous Gala Awards evening on the 17th May in the museum, when Anstruther will be reinvented as Cannes-struther!

Even if you may be a bit distant to join us for the evening we would still love for you to be involved by submitting a film entry. All the entry criteria are available on our website http://www.scotfishmuseum.org/events/view/47/festival-of-museums-2014 and in the documents below, we are keen to encourage entries from all ages and abilities.

On the Edge Entry Form

On the Edge Further information and guidelines corrected

On the Edge info leaflet

On the Edge poster

Art, Art and Design, Community Learning and Development, Creative practitioners, Dance, Drama, Funding, Health and Wellbeing, Literacy and English, Music, Primary schools, Scotland Colleges, Secondary schools, Social Studies, Technologies

Refugee Week Scotland 2014

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Community Celebrations Grant Application
Deadline: 3rd March – 5pm

At the Scottish Refugee Council we have been busy organising a very exciting programme for Refugee Week Scotland 2014! It will run from 16th – 22nd June in venues across the country, and we’d love for as many organisations as possible to get involved this year. The 2014 theme is ‘Welcome’, so we want you to have a think about how ‘welcome’ is shown in your community.

The SRC are awarding grants of £100 – £450 to help small community organisations to organise your own events as part of Refugee Week Scotland 2014. We strongly encourage you to apply and to spread the word to any other organisations or community groups that you think may be interested!

There are two files attached below – an Application Form and Grant Application Guidance Notes. Please read them both before applying! Receiving the grant from the SRC is unfortunately not guaranteed, so to make sure you are in the best position for acceptance, we urge you to read through these Guidance Notes thoroughly.  We are looking for ideas that explore the theme – ‘Welcome’ – and discuss all the different things that this word can mean. For example, your activity could:

–          Explore how welcome is shown in your community

–          Encourage people to share their experiences of how welcome they have been made to feel here

–          Encourage people to share experiences of how they have welcomed life in Scotland

Most importantly, you must demonstrate how your event will appeal to other communities and general public, and how you plan to involve them! The Community Celebration Events are the first step towards wide-scale understanding and integration among asylum seeker, refugee and local communities across the whole of Scotland. We want to know how your event will help this become a reality!

The deadline for submission is Monday 3rd March, 5pm. Please send all completed applications to arts@scottishrefugeecouncil.org.uk

If you need help – we are happy to discuss any ideas and give advice where necessary – just email arts@scottishrefugeecouncil.org.uk.You can also browse last year’s programme for inspiration.
Good luck!

Community Celebration Grant Application Form 2014

Community Celebration Grant Application Guidance Notes 2014 Final