December 2024 Update
2024 AWARDS EVENT
The Vision Schools Scotland Team look forward to welcoming MSPs, students and teachers to our annual awards event on 6th February 2025. Congratulations to the 12 schools who will be receiving awards from Ms Jenny Gilruth, Cabinet Secretary for Education and Skills. These schools are: Alva Academy, Chryston High, Mearns Castle High, Turnbull High and West Calder High, who have successfully renewed their Vision Schools Scotland status; Balerno High, Inverurie Academy and Williamwood High who have successfully achieved Level 1; Isobel Mair and Kirkintilloch High who at the beginning of their journey in Holocaust Education are being awarded a Recognition of Commitment; and St Ninians High, East Dunbartonshire and St Ninians High, East Renfrewshire who have successfully achieved Level 2. We are also delighted to announce that our guest speaker is the Lord Mann, UK Government’s Independent Adviser on Antisemitism and Kick It Out Ambassador who supports addressing discrimination in football.
VISION SCHOOLS SCOTLAND SCHOOLS’ LIBRARY NETWORK
Created in 2023, the Vision Schools Scotland Schools’ Library Network aims to encourage school librarians, teachers, and pupils to engage with high-quality Holocaust literature, both fiction and non-fiction. This group comprises teachers and school librarians who are passionate about encouraging reading in general, and who are also keen to support wider teaching and learning about and from the Holocaust.
The group has compiled two extensive booklists of Holocaust literature, one for adults and one for children and young people. The lists have been produced for use by school librarians, teachers, and pupils to be used when selecting texts for study, for personal reading and to help with suggesting what someone could move on to read next. These lists will be available for downloading on the Vision Schools Scotland in early 2025.
RESEARCH
Our thanks to schools who continue to support our research by granting us permission to use their submissions and feedback from evaluations. We will shortly be sending a copy of our article entitled Leadership and Curriculum: Embedding teaching and learning about the Holocaust in schools in Scotland, published in the international journal Intercultural Education, to schools who participated in this research.
Holocaust Educational Trust Events
The Holocaust Educational Trust is pleased to invite applications for their Exploring the Holocaust: UK Residential Course, which will take place in Leicester (Friday 14 February to Tuesday 18 February 2025).
Applications are invited from primary and secondary teachers and trainees of any subject area who are currently in post across the UK. Participants are required to be available for the entirety of this free residential course (bursaries for teacher cover costs and teacher travel are available). We particularly welcome applications from teachers engaged in the Vision Schools Scotland programme (https://www.het.org.uk/news-and-events/upcoming-events/572-exploring-the-holocaust-residential-course).
The Holocaust Educational Trust is also proud to launch the Rolf Schild and Holocaust Educational Trust Professional Recognition Award, an exciting new initiative to support teachers in their professional development. Thanks to generous support from the Schild family, the Professional Recognition Award will enable teachers to complete a fully funded 3-stage programme of professional development through the Trust, encompassing residential study both in the UK and abroad (https://www.het.org.uk/rolf-schild-award).
Vision Schools Scotland wish everyone a wonderful holiday and a Happy New Year
April 2022 – More Schools to Benefit from Holocaust Education After Funding Boost
The organisation set up by UWS to promote excellence in teaching the Holocaust in schools has been awarded £50,000 to continue this vital work and promote the National Holocaust Memorial and Learning Centre in London, which will be completed in 2025.
The funding from the UK Memorial Directorate’s Department of Levelling Up, Housing and Communities will enable Vision Schools Scotland, founded by UWS in partnership with Holocaust Educational Trust, to support and reward more schools who demonstrate innovation and good practice in Holocaust education for another year, as well as focusing on promoting the aims of the aims of the new Learning Centre and highlighting the British experiences of the Holocaust.
Vision Schools Scotland launched in 2017 with three schools, but the programme has now grown to include 23 Vision Schools and a network of more than 40 schools that are involved in varying stages of the programme.
The organisation promotes a focus on the history of, and learning from, the Holocaust. The former is essential in addressing Holocaust distortion, while the latter allows issues such as contemporary antisemitism, anti-gypsyism and xenophobia to be studied in this context – issues essential in achieving global citizenship.
The new grant means that Vision Schools Scotland is funded by the Scottish and UK Governments.
March 2021 – Launch of Marianne Grant Resource
Vision School and UWS launches pioneering new Holocaust educational resource.
A pioneering new educational resource has been created by Vision Schools Scotland, at the University of the West of Scotland to support teaching secondary school pupils about the Holocaust. Read all about it here:
UWS launches pioneering new holocaust educational resource
The Jewish Chronicle – Survivor’s story that will stir teachers in Scotland; read it here:
https://www.pressreader.com/uk/the-jewish-chronicle/20210326/282162178993524
January 2021 – Holocaust Memorial Day – we must never forget Aushchwitz – Professor Henry Maitles blog post explaining why we must never forget the horrors of the Holocaust. Read it here:
BLOG: Holocaust Memorial Day – we must never forget Auschwitz – UWS eBulletin
To mark Holocaust Memorial Day, Dr Paula Cowan looks at how Schools can teach the subject to a new generation:
https://www.tes.com/news/why-meaningful-holocaust-education-school-crucial
