Value who we are and who we can become
As governors we spend a lot of time on the day to day obligations of governance including the huge area of holding the school to account on attainment and progress of pupils but each year we select 2-3 additional areas on which to focus our attention. Last year this included developing global learning and citizenship which has seen much progress and feeds in to the ethos of the school: valuing who we are and what we can become. I have set out below a note from the chair of the Curriculum and Parents sub-committee, Asta von Stackelberg, on where we have got to so far and we intend to continue building on this in the year ahead.
Global learning and citizenship is about enabling children to develop the understanding and skills needed to engage critically and actively with a fast-changing, inter-dependent world and to secure a fairer and more sustainable future. It is about thinking and doing and the firm belief that we can all make a difference. This involves thinking big but starting with small, manageable steps.
Global learning enriches all areas of the curriculum and each subject has an important contribution to make in developing key elements. Our aim is to build a comprehensive program which slots in neatly with the curriculum, introduces the basics to the very young and leads up to more complex, independent and responsible work in KS2. Key elements are:
• asking questions and critical thinking
• exploring local-global connections and our views, values and assumptions
• exploring the complexity of issues and engaging with multiple perspectives
• exploring issues of social justice locally and globally
• applying learning to real-world issues and contexts
• opportunities for all pupils to have their voice heard and take informed and reflective action
Continuing from our work last year we are focusing on the school’s ethos, the curriculum and extra curricular activities, development of staff and further community engagement. Doing this we will draw on our existing practices, skills and links from within our community as well as on outside resources such as Oxfam. Last year we made contact through a parent with a school on St Helena which will become our new partner school - it will be very exciting to establish the link between pupils during this year and we hope that this partnership will generate a multitude of opportunities. We will also continue our work about refugees, explore the complexities of the issues involved and seek out other ways to become actively engaged in order to forge a more sustainable, just, peaceful and tolerant future.
If you would like to know more about our work then please do ask one of us, we would be delighted to answer any questions you may have.
Please contact the school office should you wish to inspect the minutes of the Governing Body.
The Chair of Governors is Chris Wheaton. Please contact the school office if you wish to discuss anything with him.