On Friday 5th June I attended a conference examining community resilience and how it is incorporated in to the curriculum. This area has been given a higher profile following the release of the Learning for Sustainability documentation that was the basis for the Learning Directorate’s visit to Inveralmond in April this year. Community resilience is examining ways in which schools encourage learners to take a more active role within their communities and how they could aid the response after events such as flooding, power cuts or rapid spread of disease – all of which are possible across large swathes of Scotland in the coming years.

The conference was a mix of presentations given by practitioners who have been early adopters of this new context for learning and professionals from various bodies who wish to promote community resilience (such as RNLI, Keep Scotland Beautiful, Save the Children and SEPA) and round table discussion in groups (taken from both educational and wider settings). The main thrust of these conversations was to examine what currently goes in schools which could be classified as community resilience and how do outside agencies best engage with schools to put across the benefits and assistance that they can provide to aid the implementation of this.

From these discussions, it became clear that the idea of community resilience would sit very well in a number of places within the secondary curriculum. Within traditional subject areas there is scope for examining previous responses to events such as flooding and the methods employed to reduce the impact within Geography and the Sciences. The organisers, primarily Eilidh Soussi from Education Scotland who has been seconded to the role of developing community resilience across Scotland, have provided a range of ideas with associated links to curricular areas for those interested.

Where community resilience as a context for learning may be more appropriate in Inveralmond’s setting would be in the inherent opportunities for interdisciplinary learning afforded by the context of flooding or other local issues. Similarly, the scope for community working with businesses and partner agencies would perhaps lend itself to accreditation in a wide range of awards (such as Saltire, Citizenship, Duke of Edinburgh or CREST) through volunteer work across a year and aiding the development of skills for learning, life and work. There is certainly a lot to think about regarding how to continue our understanding of Learning for Sustainability and the wider incorporation of its ethos within and across the curriculum.

Stephen Small