Projects

Current Activities

Get Global in Cumbria 
The Department for International Development (DfID) has granted further project funding to CDEC, until 2010 for ‘Get Global in Cumbria ’ to introduce critical global awareness into schools across the county.  This includes focused work with up to twenty schools who will consider a whole-school approach to global education, and its links with core curriculum, developing speaking and listening and talk for writing, the requirement for schools to support community cohesion, and active citizenship.

Kirkby Stephen Primary School , supported with extra CPD funding from the Teacher Development Agency, was the first school to take up the challenge of embedding global education across the school. Eleanor Knowles, CDEC's Director, has been working in the classroom with each year group, alongside teachers and support staff, from the beginning of 2008.
 
Four more schools have now come on board - St Joseph's Catholic High School , Business & Enterprise College; Broughton Primary, Cockermouth; St James' Infant school, Whitehaven; Sandside Lodge School,  Ulverston. CDEC staff have begun with an initial audit of pupil's perceptions about other people and places, and are currently meeting with teachers & TA's, governors and school management to introduce the relevance and benefits of the project.  

The objectives of this project, to bring global education to all schools in the county, is further supported by the Lake District National Park Authority ‘sustainable development fund’ for a courier service to enable outlying schools to access CDEC loan boxes and use them in the classroom.

To see staff and pupils from Broughton School in action please go to www.nahttv.com and click on Teaching the Global Dimension to the right of the page.

Going Global in the Outdoors 
Over the last three years CDEC has been working with schools and outdoor education providers to bring a global dimension, including social justice as well as environmental sustainability, into activity programmes in the outdoor classroom. This project will come to an end in August 08.

As a result of Going Global in the Outdoors, CDEC has launched a full range of teaching resources for schools and outdoor providers , to be used in support of outdoor activities: the KS1 storybook ‘Meet Zogg’; the KS2 activity pack ‘Survival Pack for Future Citizens’; the KS3 activity pack ‘Exploring Values’; and the set of activity cards ‘Treading Lightly’.

We are also launching the website ‘The Big Idea’ which includes many practical ideas for education providers and schools to bring the global dimension into teaching and learning in the outdoors. Please visit www.globaloutdoors.co.uk We encourage outdoor providers and teachers to contribute to the database of good practice on this site.

Using learning from the Going Global Project CDEC offer a number of tailored courses, the ‘Outdoor Classroom’ course for teachers and outdoor providers which  will be repeated in autumn term and Philosophy for Children in the Outdoors.

We are continuing our work on the Going Global project to provide an outdoor experience for 6th form pupils. Community Choices, focuses on the dilemmas and consequences of palm oil production in Indonesia – using outdoor as well as indoor spaces. Relevant to Geography, World Development, Critical Thinking and RE and catering for a range of learning styles whilst focusing on what sustainable development means to everyone involved – from supermarket consumers to indigenous peoples


Sample teacher comments:

“The activities were really well designed and furthered student understanding on sustainability”

As well as identifying links to A levels – “As a stand-alone day the activities would support the
global citizens agenda.”




Sample students comments:

“Really worthwhile I’ve learned a lot.”

“It was really enlightening & good, thanks!”

We plan to launch this new programme in the summer term.




Identity and Diversity - revised KS3 citizenship curriculum
The Teacher Development Agency has funded CDEC to lead a CPD progamme for secondary citizenship teachers, developing and trialling classroom approaches within the framework of the revised KS3 citizenship, specifically focussing on 'Identity and Diversity-living together in the UK', and using critical thinking and active learning approaches.  This is also relevant to the requirement for schools to support community cohesion.  This programme will result in a conference for secondary citizenship teachers in November 2008, with supply paid place for every secondary school in Cumbria.

Philosophy for Children
CDEC continues to offer Philosophy for Children (P4C) Level 1 training to whole school groups (contact the office if you are interested in buying this training for your school). We recently completed this training with the staff teams of Ghyllside Primary School , Kendal and St Oswald’s Primary School, Burneside.  Also look out for our open courses.
We are working with Barrow Excellence Cluster Partnership and Creative Partnerships on a Philosophy for Global Citizenship, involving a few schools from Barrow. Pupils of these schools will be invited to take part in an outdoors activity day during summer term 08, probably at the Rook How centre in the Rusland Valley .  We will be sharing some of the work from this project through our website in the coming months.

Previously we have worked in partnership with Lancashire Global Education Centre on an innovative project to trial the effectiveness of Philosophy for Children in the delivery of Global Citizenship to pupil referral units in Lancashire and Cumbria.  For further information on this project click here