Key Issue 2 OFSTED archived 2014
Community Cohesion
Improve the provision of community cohesion by:
-Developing a whole School understanding of it.
- Ensuring it is planned for in the curriculum and in lessons.
- Making it a focus for regular review until it becomes an integral part of school life.
- Enabling pupils and staff to work more closely with communities that are different from its own.
Action and Outcome
Key Issue 2
Improve the provision of community cohesion by:
-developing a whole school understanding of the concept.
Whole school staff meeting on Global Dimension in the curriculum led by Sarah Hetherington. Staff explored the concept of Global Dimension in the Primary School, particularly that children understand as much about the similarity as the difference. We then looked at where our school was in relation to global education in the school. Kristen Robinson then worked closely with Lancashire Global Education Centre attending network cluster meetings. Following on from this, staff meetings were held and Staff worked in groups and looked at the curriculum and how they would implement community cohesion and global dimension in their classrooms. Longton Primary School is working towards the Race Equality Mark – Gwynedd Barker trained in helping other schools achieve race equality mark to ensure we as a school fully understand its impact. Governor’s and teachers completed online training in Race Equality.
-ensuring it is planned for both in the curriculum and in lessons.
-As part of implementing the creative curriculum Staff worked together in teams and through use of the global dimensions looked at opportunities for teaching community cohesion with in this new curriculum. Staff label global opportunities within planning with a (GD).
-A Global matrix is completed for each group throughout the school this shows teaching and learning opportunities that the children have had related to community cohesion in each term of the school year. Completed and submitted July 2011, 2012 and ongoing.
-Assemblies on a Friday have a Global/SEAL theme and all teaching staff lead these assemblies on rotation – this keeps community cohesion in teacher and pupils minds. Children are taught about the wider world in which they live.
-Making it a focus for regular review until it becomes an integrated part of school life.
Global matrixes are monitored to ensure community cohesion is becoming embedded in all year groups. Staff meetings take place to discuss, share ideas and opportunities about how we are going to embed further community cohesion each year.
-enabling pupils and staff to work more closely with communities that are different from its own.
-To find out about global school links from pupils and parents a letter was sent out called ’ the world on our doorstep’. This was asking parents about any links they may have with other cultures in Longton and the rest of the world and the willingness to come a share these links with Longton Primary School. We had a great response to this from parents that were born in different countries to parents that had travelled around the world and collected artefacts all willing to share their experiences with pupils at school.
One World Week
All classes- children studied life of a child in another country.
Pushpanjali dance workshops school taught Bollywood dance
Misoshi –African storytelling and drumming workshop.
Misoshi whole school assembly talked about her life in Africa.
Local visitors held stalls on their global heritage.
Miss Price – brought in a range of artefacts from her extensive travels for all classes to go and see and ask questions about.
Global Cafe
Parents with Global links held stalls -Mrs Secker –Brazil, Mrs Bracegirdle on Azerbaijan (dressed in traditional costume)both made foods for tasting, brought in photos of their child hood, maps, souvenirs.
Ladies from the Longton community with Chinese background taught some Chinese writing.
Mr Miller played and brought in his range of instruments from around the world for the children.
Year 6 researched a country and set up stalls for all classes to come and visit.
Olympics
Whole school topic – understanding Olympics as an event that brings the world together.
Each Class studied a different country as part of their work on the Olympics finding out about the culture and appreciating that all though there are differences there are many similarities. (Reception Class – visited by Preston Chinese Society).Children decorated t-shirts and made souvenirs which their given countries theme to sell. Olympic and country displays throughout school raising children's awareness.
Opening Ceremony classes learned a dance and song from that country which they performed to parents and community visitors.
All classes taught about London as a host city.
Closing ceremony was hosted at a local high school .
Preston Guild
Three day theme planned helping children understand the importance of this local event – leading up to children taking part in the guild procession.
Other examples of work we have done:
-action aid assembly
- Uganda assembly (Penny)
-lots of work undertaken to set up global link with school in Uganda initially looked good but then lack of response from school and agenda 21 lost funding.
-tribal vibes drumming workshops (Senegal).
-world book day (looked at books from other cultures)
-christmas around the world theme – presented in St Andrews Church.
-Fair Trade School status – working towards this through curriculum, assemblies and events.
- Varies outside visitors e.g. Chinese workshops, multicultural story teller.
Other local communities we have worked with
Ashwood court home for the elderly, bowling club, church, understanding and working with charities Derian House, Seeds for Africa (Harvest).
Evidence of Impact
Assembly timetable, monitoring of global matrix, photographs
Next Steps
Pupil questionnaires
Look at activities related to measuring attitudinal change in pupils
Pursue global link school
Achieve race equality mark