In PSHE in the Spring Term, Years 2-6 have been thinking about being Global Citizens. We have looked at the United Nations Global Goals for Sustainable Development and talked about some global issues. Each class has focussed on a global issue and thought about what positive action they could take to make a difference.

Global Citizenship – Hazelnut and Catkin Class

As KS1 topic was based on Toys this term the children in Hazelnut Class the children looked at examples of plastic packaging used on toys and wrote e-mails on Purple Mash expressing their thoughts about toy packaging.

In Catkin Class the children also learnt about the effect of too much plastic being used on the environment and looked at toy packing used for a newly bought Codeapilllar. They also replied to an email using Purple Mash and created posters explaining about Toy packaging.

Global Citizenship – Maple and Oak Class

Maple and Oak Classes looked at the United Nations Global Goals and decided they wanted to focus on something that directly involved them. We chose to look at food miles and the purpose of Fair Trade. We have undertaken a range of activities linked to these. Our starting point was to discover where our food was coming from and we recorded this on world maps, so we had a very clear visual of how far our food travels. We then found out a bit more about both the advantages and disadvantages of buying foods from abroad and wrote an argument to give our personal points of view.

After this we looked a little more closely at banana farming in the Windward Islands and cocoa farming in Ghana. We learned a lot about the people living in these cultures and through role play we investigated the distribution of profit from the sale of these foods. We were all in agreement that the farmers did all the hard work and couldn’t believe they received so little money for their efforts. This led us nicely to Fair Trade.

We have just begun to look at the benefits of Fair Trade to farming communities around the world who produce some of the foods we love best.

Global Citizenship – Sycamore Class

In Sycamore, after thinking about global issues that were important to us, we voted on litter as an issue we felt we could take action on. The children presented an assembly to Key Stage 2 about the harmful effects of litter on wildlife and designed posters to encourage pupils to dispose of litter properly. They have also undertaken a small litter survey among Key stage 2 pupils. The children were also keen to join the Great Big School Clean Up are holding a litter pick of the School Grounds on March 22nd. They will be doing some cross curricular work in Maths and English linked to this (data handling and persuasive letter writing).

Global Citizenship – Beech Class

We have been having regular weekly lessons and began by looking at the 14 Global Goals.  We had an overview of each and then debated various topics to generate understanding and opinions.  We made posters to show our understanding of various issues.

We then decided to focus on Goal 1: No Poverty for our class project, having discovered that we could raise money to send to Christian Aid to buy something specific to benefit poorer families.  Collectively, we decided to raise money to buy mosquito nets to prevent malaria.

The children have made bracelets and painted pebble and wooden stars to sell at school.  They donated all resources themselves, so the project has not cost us anything.

The sale is to take place on Friday 22 March

Global Citizenship – Birch Class

We have also been having regular weekly lessons and began by looking at the 14 Global Goals.  We had an overview of each and then debated various topics to generate understanding and opinions.  We made posters to show our understanding of various issues.

We then decided to focus on ‘Life under Water’ for our class project. Plastic pollution and illegal overfishing are the key issues. The children have made personal targets to work on with families at home (e.g avoiding plastic bags when shopping, more recycling), and we have come up with school action points (Forest School area), local area action points (this week, we will be writing to selected local businesses to clarify their (plastic) waste reduction plans), and a national action point (probably lobbying our MP, or the Environment Minister). Two children successfully planned and led a lesson on this, and are very keen to do another. They all have an ongoing booklet with all the Global Goals in to add to throughout the year.

They are very interested in, and committed to, the topic.