Developing Global Citizenship In Education

By Russell Peagram

Hi everyone, and welcome to another edition of the Learning and Teaching blog. I wanted to share some research that reflects a good deal of the international experience I have gained in education about Global Citizenship in Education (GCE). I found an article about the Global Citizenship Compass written by Nicolas Palmer and published by researchgate.  

Objective: Can schools implement COMPASS as a framework for further developing Global Citizenship in Education?

Summary: 

• The author sets the scene for the global need for a framework citing Article 4.7 of the UNs Sustainable Development Goals.  Further to this, the author reminds us that UNESCO explained in 2012 that “The world faces global challenges that require global solutions. It is not enough for education to produce individuals who can read, write and count. Education must be transformative and bring shared values to life. It must cultivate care for the world and for those whom share it.”

• The author conducted research into schools for a six-month period interviewing staff, students, parents, and support staff about their understanding of what Global Citizenship is and how they are developing future global citizens. 

  
  

Conclusions of the study:

• Staff can be confused as to what Global Citizenship in Education should and could look like in the curriculum and, in general, “school life” for students and staff. 

• To develop better GCE, schools can follow the newly developed COMPASS model to improve the development of Global Citizenship. 

1. Co-Creation: All stakeholders can be given the chance to talk about what Global Citizenship means in their school, subjects areas and classrooms.

2. Orientation:  Explore what unique perspectives the student body can bring to the school. 

3. Mapping: Evidence of Global Citizenship can be mapped from the written curriculum and the school can identify learning opportunities that can be improved.

4. Pathfinding: The school can promote and develop activities that promote international mindedness at the school and in the classroom that are practical, and students can engage in. 

5. Allocentrism: The school and teachers can look for opportunities to make global connections with organisations, schools, and events from around the world. 

6. Substantiating: Global Citizenship can be evidenced in the future from students and staff who can discuss and debate issues from multiple global value systems with confidence. 

7. Sustaining: Schools can continue the development of GCE which may change over time. 

   
   

How does this impact me and my practice?

• How am I currently supporting global citizenship in my classes by exploring the unique attributes of my students?

• Do I allow time to frame globally minded questions in class to allow students to think about and explore global problems and solutions?

• What elements of global citizenship can work well with my subject(s)?

• Are elements of global citizenship explored within the written curriculum and are there some opportunities to really develop some learning activities.

• Do I have any opportunities to connect with other schools to widen the scope for students to make more global connections in their learning. 

  
  

Please do get in touch if you would like to talk further about this - I’d love to hear from you!

Embedding Sustainability Into The Curriculum

 By Divisha Patel

As mentioned in the previous blog post, teaching sustainability is becoming increasingly important as schools and other educational organisations take steps to develop the Department for Education’s initiative titled: ‘Sustainability and Climate Change Strategy’. In the past few months, WA has made steps in developing how we discuss these issues with the students, including hosting a weekly climate change club; continuing to promote Meat-Free Mondays; electing Sir David Attenborough as a house hero; hosting the Grantham Institute to teach Year 10 about the importance of managing climate change; and working with UCL’s new Centre for Climate Change and Sustainability Education. The steps the school has taken put us in great stead on ‘Action Area 1’ on the government’s strategy shown here. Action Area 1 promotes the importance of learning in and about the natural environment as well as supporting teachers in both primary and secondary classrooms.  

This post is the second post of three: 

1. Where to start? This was posted in October 2022

2. Current opportunities and curriculum planning

3. Goals for the future

In order to write this, I reached out to three middle leaders about how they were incorporating sustainability within their subjects. 

English - Izzy Hilliard, KS3 Coordinator for English

As part of the English curriculum in Y7, we make our non-fiction writing unit all about climate change. For instance, one of the articles that the Y7 students have to write is pretending they are undertaking an initiative that will promote sustainability at Westminster Academy. Some students talk about making posters; planting a garden; doing a clothes swap etc. This is a great way to engage students with the concept of advocacy whilst also developing their transactional writing skills. We also read speeches by sustainability and climate change pioneers such as Greta Thunberg and David Attenborough that the students attempt to mimic, with the use of key literary devices such as persuasive writing and emotive language.

Geography - Lucy Taylor, Geography Coordinator

In Geography, when planning the new Key Stage 3 curriculum, we ensured we included lessons on sustainability and/or climate change in every single unit we teach. It is a key geographical concept that bridges both human and physical geography and therefore it is essential students have an in-depth understanding. An example of this is within the Y7 unit of Australasia, students study the challenges the indigenous groups such as Aboriginal and Torres Strait islanders face and one of these is how they are more susceptible to the impacts of climate change compared to other groups within Australia. Within Y8 during the Africa unit students will study how different groups across the continent are tackling climate change through initiatives such as the Great Green Wall, whilst also introducing them to the concept of sustainability being broken down into economic sustainability, social sustainability, and environmental sustainability. In Y9, students study Central America and within this unit they look at how ecotourism is a sustainable way to contribute to the economy whilst preserving fragile environments. At both GCSE and IB geography studying climate change and sustainability is a core part of the course, so they can apply the knowledge they learnt at Key Stage 3 and gain a deeper geographical understanding of the physical and human causes of climate change and the various approaches that may be used to tackle climate change and promote sustainable living across the globe. 

Science - Jennifer Scott, KS3 Coordinator for Science 

In Science, we have climate change and sustainability built into the curriculum and across units. For example in KS3, students consider the composition of the atmosphere and how this is impacted by pollution/carbon emissions, and the effects of this. They also consider energy efficiency and how to insulate a home to avoid energy being wasted. In KS4, students study in more detail how the atmosphere has changed over time, not only due to recent human impact but over millions of years. We also look at 'life cycle assessments' - a tool for evaluating the environmental impact of a product all the way from the extraction of materials to its use and disposal or recycling. Another consideration is the environmental impact of extracting metals from ores using different methods. In KS5, ESS takes the obvious lead on environmental studies, but through all subjects this is a consideration. For example, in practical IAs, one key aspect is the consideration of the environmental impact of the use and disposal of materials for students' chosen investigations.

How could you use this in your own teaching: 

• How does your current curriculum support the sustainability initiative? 
• How do you approach these ideas when they arise within your curriculum? 

If anyone is interested in developing how they teach about climate change further, UCL is hosting a free webinar in the Summer Term: 

Webinar: Teaching about climate change: Principles and Priorities (4 July 2022)

Developing The Curriculum As A KSCo

By Izzy Hilliard

When taking on the role of a curriculum coordinator, I was daunted by the idea of line managing my colleagues; planning open days and analysing key stage data. The idea of planning schemes of work for students was one that really excited me. I had always enjoyed planning my lessons and watching students make progress in those seventy five minutes. I also believed that the unit plans for Key Stage Three English were in pretty good shape, and therefore that part of my job was completed.

However, over the course of my first year, the English department was evolving and changing in relation to subject reports and research. The emphasis placed on skills was important but there was a new focus placed on knowledge and the explicit teaching of knowledge. On reflection, our unit plans for key stage three were looking outdated and needed to be changed. 

Therefore, I got started on planning a Year 9 unit for a novel called Ugly Dogs Don’t Cry by DD Armstrong. (If you have a spare moment, give it a read. It is set in Ladbroke Grove and is a modern retelling of Of Mice and Men based on two teenagers.)

Planning a seventy five minute lesson, and outlining the idea for twenty one lessons are different tasks, but not as different as we may first suspect. In coaching conversations with leaders of the school and other curriculum coordinators I was given the same advice. When faced with an empty excel spreadsheet for the scheme of work two decisions have to be made from the offset:

1. What essential understanding(s) do you want students to have by the end of the unit?

2. What do you want students to be able to do by the end of the term? What skill will you be assessing? 

3. What knowledge do you want them to gain over the term? 

4. How is what they are doing more challenging than what they were doing the year prior?

For me, talking to the team and leaders helped me figure out the answers to those questions. A unit plan is not something which is a completely solo project. The input from Department Leads and subject teachers are extremely valuable. Together we decided on how to assess their analysis skills and the knowledge and ideas we wanted to have. Furthermore, we discussed how to build towards having more sophisticated analysis, teaching them knowledge such as lexical fields; tonal shifts and focus changes instead of verbs; adjectives and adverbs and writing frames that came from a more detached, critical viewpoint. Deciding on what is the essential “golden nugget” or understanding of a unit is difficult as there always appears multiple goals. Yet, what I knew that the Year 9 cohort needed to understand was that their analysis should be detached and critical. I want to ensure that whilst the team promotes personal responses to analytical questions, simultaneously students are able to write authentic responses that retain a degree of criticality. 

The job of a curriculum lead therefore is to decide on the four questions posed, after collaborative conversations. Once the questions are answered the rest of the work falls together. You want to ensure each lesson builds to your overall goal and includes all of the knowledge you want to incorporate into the term. Also- have some fun! Each coordinator, teacher and leader has their own unique knowledge on their subject. Put that into the unit that you are planning. Once I began doing that, believing in the knowledge that I had, I was able to enjoy and feel excited about the unit I was planning.

Types Of Knowledge In The WA Curriculum

By Alice Hall & Ruhina Cockar

Ruth Ashbee defines curriculum as “knowledge structured over time”, so what do we mean by knowledge?

Different educational experts categorise knowledge in different ways. We may have heard knowledge referred to by different labels and at times the overlap between seemingly discrete ‘categories’ can be confusing. Subject to subject, we may also categorise knowledge slightly differently, so, at times, the labels may be slightly blurred. What is important as teachers, is that we understand the different types of knowledge, how they apply to our subjects, and how we incorporate them into our teaching. 

How are the types of knowledge defined? 

Types of knowledge can include:

• Declarative knowledge

• Substantive knowledge

• Procedural knowledge

• Disciplinary knowledge

• Tacit knowledge

  
  

“Substantive knowledge is the content that teachers teach as established fact – whether common convention, concept or warranted account of reality. You might want pupils to know of crotchets, percentages, the Treaty of Waitangi, Debussy or stem cells. In calling this ‘substantive’, we are treating the material presented as givens.

Disciplinary knowledge, by contrast, is a curricular term for what pupils learn about how that knowledge was established and how it continues to be revised by scholars, artists or professional practice. It is that part of the subject where pupils understand each discipline as a tradition of enquiry with its own distinctive pursuit of truth. It describes that part of the curriculum where pupils learn about the conditions under which valid claims can be made, and associated conventions such as what constitutes evidence or argument in that subject” (Counsell, 2020).

Procedural knowledge is a term that often accompanies declarative knowledge. Sometimes the definition of these two terms is given as ‘know how’ and ‘know what’. Procedural knowledge is the understanding of how something is done, the series of steps or actions taken to accomplish a goal, for example, following a recipe of set steps to create a meal. Some procedural knowledge is domain-specific (such as the understanding of using baking powder as a raising agent to bake a cake) and some is transferable across disciplines (such as plotting graphs, skills that may be taught in both Geography and Maths). 

Tacit knowledge can be much harder for students to describe. Sometimes called lived knowledge, tacit knowledge is often inferred and developed through lived experiences. Students may know, for example, that their friend is sad, but may struggle to articulate why (dropped facial expression, slouched posture, muted tone of voice, etc). Tacit knowledge can be very important in the learning process, however is often difficult for students to articulate in an explicit manner. 

How does Ofsted want us to use this understanding about types of knowledge? 

Ofsted refers to research from educational psychologist Sweller who states that, “Learning can be defined as an alteration in long-term memory. If nothing has altered in long-term memory, nothing has been learned”. However, transfer to long-term memory depends on rich processes. In order to develop understanding, pupils connect new knowledge with existing knowledge. Pupils also need to develop fluency and unconsciously apply their knowledge as skills. This must not be reduced to, or confused with, simply memorising facts.

In terms of how schools are expected to demonstrate this, Professor Daniel Muijis, Ofsted’s Deputy Director of Research and Evaluation said “It’s what you do, not how you label it that matters.” Schools will not be judged on whether they organise their knowledge under the labels ‘disciplinary’ and ‘substantive’ or any other organisational principles. They will, however, be asked about ‘what they do’ and as long as an approach or approaches can be explained clearly and is shown to be helpful in the school’s curriculum design work, then curriculum design can be judged to be effective.

How does this fit with the WA vision for the curriculum?

The WA curriculum, including the personal development curriculum, will support student success by ensuring that they know, do, and understand more. Effective road-mapping will help students link and relate topics to prior and future learning, building the metacognitive skills to become successful enquirers. Student-centred learning will be promoted through successful independent practice and the practical application of knowledge. This will be supported by appropriate instruction, modelling, scaffolding and guided practice. Our curriculum will be both a mirror and a window, reflecting all members of our community whilst challenging preconceptions and equipping students with the skills and experience to think critically.

Subject leaders and teachers should be able to distinguish and understand what the different types of knowledge are for their subjects. This should be guiding their curriculum design and therefore clearly expressed in unit plans and lesson planning. Students should be able to express their understanding through what they know, how they know it and how they might be able to attempt a problem (metacognitive understanding). Keep in mind that types of knowledge may look different from subject to subject, and it is important to consider how this may impact the teaching and learning in your subject area. 

Questions to consider: 

• What are the facts and methods that should make up the curriculum? What are the links between them?

• What is the necessary prior knowledge needed in order to access a particular topic?

• What are the features of excellent writing in a particular topic? How should these be mapped and explicitly taught across the curriculum?

• How can I continually review and develop our curriculum? 

  
  

References

Birgit Muskat and Marg Deery, 2017.  “Knowledge  transfer  and  organizational  memory:  An  events perspective”. Event Management 21(4), pp. 431–447. 

Christine Counsell, 2020. https://my.chartered.college/impact_article/taking-curriculum- seriously/  

Christine Counsell and Daniel Mujis, 2022 https://trivium21c.com/2020/01/26/ofsted-and- knowledge/ 

Ofsted Music Subject Review, 2021. https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/research- review-series-music 

Ofsted Art aide memoire (in Third Space Learning), 2022. https://thirdspacelearning.com/ blog/ofsted-crib-sheets/ 

Primary Science Education Consultants, 2022. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v= eduvDOHH3UQ