Think Global, Act Local #showthelove

Sciennes Think Global, Act Local Assembly 2.2.18 from Sciennes Primary School

On Friday 2nd February we were delighted to welcome a delegation of eight teachers and staff from Laugarnesskóli Primary School in Reykjavik. Laugarnesskóli is the first Icelandic school to gain a Silver Unicef Rights Respecting Schools Award and we welcomed the opportunity to share practice and ideas.  After a tour of the school and classrooms, the Headteacher (Sigridur Heida Bragadottir) very kindly spoke at Assembly and gifted a beautiful book about Iceland for our Library. We are really looking forward to establishing a new International partnership between our schools. Like Sciennes, Laugarnesskóli is working towards its fifth green ECO flag and it would be wonderful to link on Eco topics too.

As global citizens, pupils were encourage to participate in this year's Climate Coalition #showthelove climate action campaign, by noticing and recording evidence of climate change over the next few weeks.

We concluded Week Three of our City of Edinburgh 'Be Resilient' Health and Wellbeing topic 'Have a Goal' by sharing pupil examples of goals they have recently set as a family.

Sigridur Heida Bragadottir, Headteacher of Rights Respecting School Laugarnesskóli, Reykjavik, Iceland addressing Assembly

Global Goals House Assemblies 15.9.17

Sciennes Global Goals House Assembly 15.9.17 from Sciennes Primary School

On Friday 15th September 2017 we held our first House Assemblies of the new session for P2-P7 and welcomed P2 pupils to their first ever House Assembly for Grange, Lauder, Sienna and Tantallon.

In November 2015 Sciennes achieved a Bronze Award and in May 2016, Sciennes achieved a Silver (Level One) "Rights Respecting School" award. We are working towards Gold accreditation (Level Two), achievable within three years of Silver. Our journey so far has been recorded on our Rights Respecting Sciennes Timeline. We asked pupils what it means to be a UNCRC Rights Respecting School and reminded them this includes being a Global Citizen, respecting other people's rights.

We first introduced our pupils to the United Nations' Global Goals for Sustainable Development when they were launched in September 2015. By 2030 these aim to:

End extreme poverty
Fight inequality & injustice
Fix climate change





On September 25th 2015, 193 world leaders committed to the 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs.) Two years on, we watched a rap to help us understand all the goals better.




2018 is the Year of Young People and we asked the children to think about and share their ideas for being #Goalkeepers, like Malala, Barack Obama and Bill and Melinda Gates. What world do they want to see by 2030?




'The World's Largest Lesson Part Three' has a food theme this year and we will be exploring this and other relevant Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) throughout the year. P3 will again be leading a whole school Harvest Appeal. Last year they successfully led donations to a local Foodbank charity and this year they are supporting the Send a Cow to Africa charity.



15th September is the International Day for Democracy. Congratulations to our newly elected Pupil Council members who will be the voice of their classmates throughout the year and will also be our Rights Respecting Schools Ambassadors. The results of the ECO Rep elections were also announced for each House.

Article 12

You have the right to an opinion and for it to be listened to and taken seriously.

Article 29

The right to education which develops your personality, respect for others’ rights and the environment.

Sciennes Values Respect

Sciennes P4-7 Aim High Assembly 18.8.17 from Sciennes Primary School

On Friday 18th August we welcomed Primary Four pupils and all new pupils to their first upper school assembly. We also welcomed Miss Jennifer Ferguson and Miss Sophie Mitchell to the Primary Five team.

This year, we are revisiting our school vision and values so pupils were invited to think about what is most important to us in the Sciennes Family.  We are extremely grateful to parent Emma Kirk (CEO User Vision and Convenor of the Parent Council Communications Group) who recently led an excellent session to help the whole staff revisit and reflect on our vision and values. Pupil Council leaders will soon be elected, one from each class P2-P7, who will then be able to join in on discussions and support the process.

We explored ways to respect everyone's right to be safe and right to learn at Sciennes. Primary Seven pupils helped explain what 'The Golden Rule' means.



Showing respect universally unites us all: in the classroom, in the school and beyond, as global citizens.  Brad Montague's moving film ' Smuggling Hope' was shown to help us all continue to believe that we can all make a difference by upholding our values.

Citizenship Assembly 27.1.17

Sciennes Citizenship P4-7 Assembly 27.1.17 from Sciennes Primary School

On Friday 27th January our Assembly theme was Citizenship with a particular focus on our Pupil Eco Group's recent and planned actions in school. We were delighted to welcome Kirstin Unger from the Parent Eco Group, who works so hard to improve our school grounds, planting with pupils and greening our playground so beautifully. Kirstin explained very clearly and engagingly how to take part in the annual RSPB Big Garden Birdwatch at the weekend. We look forward to hearing how many pupils took part and which birds were spotted.

Kirstin encourages participation in the RSPB Big Garden Birdwatch

The Pupil Eco Group agreed with Kirstin's suggestion at a recent joint Parent and Pupil Eco Group  meeting to organise regular collections for loose play. Michael and Catie encouraged everyone to bring in pine cones next week. Faye encouraged classes to use the online Travel Tracker to record journeys to school and Ali reminded P6C that his class is on Litter Duty next week. We were excited to announce that Sciennes is one of ten schools to be selected for a new Eco Schools eTwinning project and we will find out more next month.

Barack Obama promoted Global Citizenship throughout his presidency and has now handed the mic to a new generation. The Obama Foundation http://www.obama.org has been set up to focus on developing the next generation of citizens and we aim to help all our children become Responsible Citizens.




We welcomed Lesley and Lorna to tell everyone about a new Scripture Union lunchtime club for P6/P7 starting after the February break.

Lorna and Lesley launch new SU Club

Our Sports Captains celebrated pupil achievements and promoted the JGHS Appeal for small toys and pencil cases. P6 Digital Leaders were congratulated on setting up a new lunchtime iPad Coding Club and P7 Digital Leaders for helping P1 in the Digital Learning Centre.

Ms Anstruther has asked for donations of dressing up clothes to help us continue to address 1 in 5 Child Poverty. Pupils Bella and Emma came up with this great idea to help include everyone in dressing up days.

Classes will be learning about digital safety this month and we wished Happy Chinese New Year to all our families celebrating.

Article 29

You have the right to education which develops your personality, respect for others’ rights and the environment.

 

Global Goal 10 Reduced Inequalities

Sciennes P4-7 Assembly SDG10 20.1.17 from Sciennes Primary School

On Friday 20th January we were delighted to welcome back Former Pupils Jamie Underwood, Li-Sian Song and James Stewart, who are now in S6 at James Gillespie's High School and preparing for a visit to twinned schools in KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa in February. They have asked pupils to donate pencil cases, toys, games and clothes which can be handed into the School Office until Friday 2nd February.

Mr Howie gave an inspirational presentation on how Elizabeth Eckford, one of the Arkansas Little Rock Nine, successfully managed her emotions and response to the extreme prejudice and racist hostility she endured in 1957, just for going to school. Her remarkable dignity is an example to us all and linked very effectively to school use of 'Emotions Talk' as a support for pupils in managing their emotions. Mr Howie encouraged everyone to learn not only from role models in history but also from people around us in how we manage our emotions and stand up for what we value. We all certainly look to Mr Howie to inspire and encourage us with his engaging and deeply thought-provoking presentations, taking powerful lessons we can all learn from History and relating them to our school.

We thanked Sciennes' parent, Mr Colin Sim, who as well as recently securing £5500 for digital learning through funding applications also secured a grant of £2000 from South Central Edinburgh Neighbourhood Partnership to enhance our school grounds. There is great interest from the children in the willow structures currently being installed in the playground by Gus and his team from 'Earth Calling'.

Article 1

Everyone under 18 has these rights.

Article 2

You have the right to protection against discrimination.

Article 29

You have the right to education which develops your personality, respect for others’ rights and the environment.

'WE Free the Children' Returning to Sciennes!

We are tremendously excited about an upcoming return visit to Sciennes on Wednesday 7^th December from WE Free the Children, again arranged for us by Schools Co-ordinator Harriet Morgan.

Jacob, from WE Free the Children, visited in June to work with half of our (then P6) pupils and it was a superb and inspirational day, providing a wealth of opportunities for our children to embrace pupil leadership. Wednesday 7th December will mark a return visit from the charity, where a Speaker and Facilitator will work with the remaining half of our P7 pupils.

We are honoured to welcome Nicola Brentnall, the Director of The Queen’s Trust and Kate Likely, UK Director of Free the Children, who will join us on the day.

P6 and P7 pupils have been invited to a special assembly at 9am and then half the P7 year group will take part in Free the Children workshops throughout the day, while Ms Sellar will lead the remaining pupils in a repeat of her excellent Global Goals workshop, focusing on Gender Equality.

The format of the workshops fits ideally with our aims to develop pupil-led social action as part of the Junior Award Scheme for Schools:

Team Building/Issues Module – exploring prevalent issues in society, and globally to build confidence, identify leadership skills and also get pupils thinking about issues they care about.
Reflective Module - enabling pupils to think how they can use their skills for issues that are important to them.  
Action Planning - putting pen to paper to create a tangible action plan for children to develop and put into practice.

www.we.org/gb 

Free the Children

Free The Children is an international charity and educational partner that believes in a world where all young people are free to achieve their fullest potential as change-makers. Over the last 20 years, Free The Children has grown into an international movement supporting youth empowerment through educational service-learning initiatives in North America and the United Kingdom, and a holistic and sustainable international development model. It is supported by the Queen's Trust, the UN, Virgin Atlantic and has many international supporters -  Malala, Desmond Tutu, Prince Harry, Oprah will give a flavour. Their model is 'children helping children' and they promote pupil leadership and taking action, here and abroad. The scheme began in Canada, initiated  by one of the CEOs when he was 12, and is a social enterprise endeavour. 

For more information about Free the Children, visit their website.

The 'Free the Children' programme fits extremely well with our well established Junior Awards Scheme Scotland (JASS) programme in P6 and P7 where pupils are asked to take their own action to achieve a 'Me and My World' element. JASS is a children's version of The Duke of Edinburgh Award, and the idea for it actually came from Sciennes! It is now adopted throughout Edinburgh and beyond so has been retitled Junior Award Scheme for Schools.

The Junior Award Scheme Schools (JASS) is an accredited learning programme, celebrating wider achievement, for young people (P6-S2). Sciennes and Tollcross Primary Schools have been implementing this scheme since we piloted it in 2009.
The concept emerged from a discussion during a Sciennes P7 visit to Lagganlia between Alice Brown, Gael Logan and Barry Hewitt who came up with the idea to set up a 'Duke of Edinburgh' style award scheme for upper primary pupils. The scheme has since been developed into a city wide programme.

There are three levels (bronze, silver and gold), each requiring a higher degree of commitment. Each level also includes four sections to be completed:

• My interest - a hobby or interest
• Get Active, Stay Active - involvement in a sport or physical activity
• Me and My World - a community or environmental project
• Adventure - a teamwork challenge through involvement in an outdoor activity (e.g Benmore and Lagganlia)

http://jassawardsciennes.blogspot.co.uk/

Sciennes helped develop an online version - eJASS.


Free the Children also fits well with our Unicef Rights Respecting Schools programme. We have recently achieved Level One and our next steps are to continue to extend knowledge of UNCRC and to expand global citizenship. The Free the Children programme will assist us with that. We have highlighted the relevance of the Global Goals for Sustainable Development since their launch in September 2015 and the programme also supports this extremely well.

Celebrating Wider Achievement in P6 and P7

 Junior Award Scheme for Schools (JASS) - October until May annually

Pupils in P6 and P7 will soon be introduced to Bronze and Silver JASS.
http://www.jasschools.org.uk/

http://jassawardsciennes.blogspot.co.uk/


At Sciennes we seek to recognise and celebrate our pupils' wider achievements as Successful Learners, Confident Individuals, Effective Contributors and Responsible Citizens.


JASS AWARDS in P6 and P7
We aim to allocate about six months to the Junior Award Scheme Scotland (JASS) awards at Bronze (P6) and Silver (P7) Levels and we include as many holidays within that time as possible - from the October holiday through to the Easter holiday - to help pupils achieve their goals. Towards the end of May and in early June, pupils will be asked to give a short 5 minute talk explaining how they have achieved either 8 (Bronze) or 12 (Silver) hours in each of the four categories: Get Active, Stay Active; Adventure; My Interests; Me and My World.  They will also update their online eJASS account with details of their activities. Certificates and badges will be issued before the end of term. JGHS offers Gold accreditation (18 hours in each category), achievable by the end of S2, and many of our former pupils have progressed to achieve a Duke of Edinburgh Award.


GET ACTIVE, STAY ACTIVE
Our pupils take part in so many sporting activities throughout the year that many can achieve the minimum hours in a few weeks! Walking, scooting and cycling to school can also count.


ADVENTURE
Most of our pupils will easily achieve the minimum 8 (Bronze) or 12 (Silver) Adventure award at Benmore or Lagganlia and those who do not attend can take part in adventurous local trips and activities that can count towards the JASS award, including hillwalking, kayaking, rollerblading, climbing, horseriding, cycling or walking trips in the outdoors.


ME AND MY INTERESTS
Any hobby or interest or skill (other than sport) such as learning about Science or History, sewing, calligraphy, learning or practising a musical instrument, reading, language learning, photography or computer programming for example, can count towards achieving the 8 (P6 Bronze) or 12 (P7 Silver) Me and My Interests award.


ME AND MY WORLD 
Me and My World Ideas:

Making a Difference to Others - in school, at home, in your community, locally, nationally, globally
Throughout the year, our pupils will have opportunities to volunteer to support local, national and global charities and campaigns: e.g. Food Bank, Fairtrade, Comic Relief, as well as taking part in school fundraising events at school such as the Christmas and Summer Fairs. Participation in these events counts towards the 'Me and My World' JASS award, but the award does not need to involve fundraising. Making a difference at home and in the community, by helping neighbours or gardening or clearing litter or supporting national or international campaigns can also be part of the award. Many of our pupils take part in Earth Calling after school club and might take part in local campaigns or present research about environmental issues and the Global Goals for Sustainable Development. Pupils might consider preparing and delivering a talk about a charitable or environmental organisation or deciding to give their time in some way to help others.

Global Goals One Year On

Sciennes Global Goals House Assembly 16.9.16 from Sciennes Primary School

On Friday 16th September 2016 we held our first House Assemblies of the new session for P2-P7 and welcomed P2 pupils to their first ever House Assembly.

In May 2016, Sciennes became a Level One "Rights Respecting School" and we have already begun our journey towards Level Two accreditation. Our journey so far has been recorded on our Rights Respecting Sciennes blog. We reminded pupils what it means to be a Rights Respecting School and that it includes being a Global Citizen. We first introduced our pupils to the United Nations' Global Goals for Sustainable Development when they were launched last year in September 2015. By 2030 these aim to:

End extreme poverty
Fight inequality & injustice
Fix climate change




On September 25th 2015, 193 world leaders committed to the 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs.) One year on, we watched a rap to help us understand all the goals better.


We thought about what we have already done in school to be Global Citizens. For example, last year the whole school took part in a City of Edinburgh pilot project to raise awareness of 1 in 5 Child Poverty (SDG1), P3 led a whole school project to raise money for 9 playgrounds for Syrian refugees (SDG10), P6 took part in Gender Equality workshops (SDG5) and our ECO Group campaigns took action on Climate Change (SDG15) and promoted Sustainable Consumption (SDG12).

We watched an animation written by Sir Ken Robinson, 'The World's Largest Lesson Part Two' which gave us ideas of what we might do next to help make a better world.


The World's Largest Lesson 2016 - with thanks to Sir Ken Robinson and Emma Watson from World's Largest Lesson on Vimeo.

Congratulations to our newly elected Pupil Council members who will be the voice of their classmates throughout the year and will also be our Rights Respecting Schools Ambassadors.

Article 29

The right to education which develops your personality, respect for others’ rights and the environment.

WE Free The Children

We are very excited and looking forward to welcoming Free the Children to Sciennes on Wednesday 15th June to embrace the pupil leadership opportunities their programme provides for taking action.

Free the Children

Free The Children is an international charity and educational partner that believes in a world where all young people are free to achieve their fullest potential as change-makers. Over the last 20 years, Free The Children has grown into an international movement supporting youth empowerment through educational service-learning initiatives in North America and the United Kingdom, and a holistic and sustainable international development model. It is supported by the Queen's Trust, the UN, Virgin Atlantic and has many international supporters -  Malala, Desmond Tutu, Prince Harry, Oprah will give a flavour. Their model is 'children helping children' and they promote pupil leadership and taking action, here and abroad. The scheme began in Canada, initiated  by one of the CEOs when he was 12, and is a social enterprise endeavour. 

For more information about Free the Children, visit their website.

The 'Free the Children' programme will fit extremely well with our well established Junior Awards Scheme Scotland (JASS) programme in P6 and P7 where pupils are asked to take their own action to achieve a 'Me and My World' element. JASS is a children's version of The Duke of Edinburgh Award, and the idea for it actually came from Sciennes! It is now adopted throughout Edinburgh and beyond so has been retitled Junior Award Scheme for Schools.

The Junior Award Scheme Schools (JASS) is an accredited learning programme, celebrating wider achievement, for young people (P6-S2). Sciennes and Tollcross Primary Schools have been implementing this scheme since we piloted it in 2009.
The concept emerged from a discussion during a Sciennes P7 visit to Lagganlia between Alice Brown, Gael Logan and Barry Hewitt who came up with the idea to set up a 'Duke of Edinburgh' style award scheme for upper primary pupils. The scheme has since been developed into a city wide programme.

There are three levels (bronze, silver and gold), each requiring a higher degree of commitment. Each level also includes four sections to be completed:

• My interest - a hobby or interest
• Get Active, Stay Active - involvement in a sport or physical activity
• Me and My World - a community or environmental project
• Adventure - a teamwork challenge through involvement in an outdoor activity (e.g Benmore and Lagganlia)

http://jassawardsciennes.blogspot.co.uk/

Sciennes helped develop an online version - eJASS.


Free the Children will also fit in well with our Unicef Rights Respecting Schools programme. We have recently achieved Level One and our next steps are to continue to extend knowledge of UNCRC and to expand global citizenship. The Free the Children programme will assist us with that. We have highlighted the relevance of the Global Goals for Sustainable Development since their launch in September and the programme also supports that well.

P4-7 Assembly UN World Day for Cultural Diversity

Sciennes World Culture and Diversity P4-7 Assembly 20.5.16 from Sciennes Primary School

On Friday 20th May at our P4-7 Assembly we celebrated all the fabulous Language learning that has been happening at Sciennes, so ably led by Ms Bethan Owen, and thanked our three wonderful Language volunteers, Isabel, Sergio and Miguel, as well as our excellent final year Bilingual Primary Education student, Ana Vidal, from Madrid University.

We made suggestions for cultural activities that our children might get involved in over the weekend to celebrate UN World Day for Cultural Diversity on May 21st and were delighted to note so many of our children already take part in similar activities to the ones suggested.

We also looked forward to Sciennes Parent Council's exciting International Fair on SATURDAY 4th JUNE 12pm-3pm and found out more about the mysterious yarnbombing phenomenon, which has decorated our playground overnight!

Next week, each class will contribute to City of Edinburgh's 1+2 Twitter campaign and we used some examples of Tweets already happening this week, to give everyone ideas!

We started the day at 8am with a 'Walking Bus' and ended it at 12pm with an ECO Schools Clean Up Campaign. P6 pupils Laura and Arooj explained very clearly and confidently how these two events helped us make a difference in tackling Climate Change (Global Goal 13).

It was wonderful to welcome the team from Nourish Scotland to school on Thursday 19th May, who were gathering children's views about The Right to Food' for Tam Baillie, the Children and Young People's Commissioner.

Unfortunately we ran out of time to hear from our Sports Captains on the presentations they have created about Olympic Values and Fencing, and the Day for Change count is still ongoing! Another very busy week at Sciennes!

Article 30

The right to enjoy your own culture, practise your own religion and use your own language.

Sciennes South Africa Pencil Case Donations

To Sciennes parents and pupils, a huge thank you for all your pencil case donations. We were overwhelmed by your kindness and generosity. We have just returned from South Africa and it was fantastic to be able to give your gifts to the children fron Charles Memorial primary school where they were greatly appreciated. The children were so excited as you can see from the attached photos.

Thanks once again,

Jessica, Anna, Katie and Amy

James Gillespies High School

Fairtrade Fortnight Breakfast

FAIRTRADE FORTNIGHT 29th FEBRUARY - 13th MARCH

We hope families will consider joining this year's Fairtrade Fortnight campaign - "You eat, they eat" by choosing some Fairtrade products, at breakfast time particularly.

See link for further information:

http://fortnight.fairtrade.org.uk

#FairtradeFortnight
#YouEatTheyEat

Global Goal 10 

UN GLOBAL GOALS for 2030

World Leaders have committed to 17 Global Goals to achieve 3 extraordinary things in the next 15 years.
End extreme poverty.
Fight inequality & injustice.
Fix climate change.
The Global Goals for sustainable development could get these things done. In all countries. For all people. If the Goals are going to work, everyone needs to know about them. TELL EVERYONE.

 

Jonathan's Re-Act Scotland Presentation

Jonathan in P7B, assisted by Sam, gave a superb presentation to the P4-7 Assembly on Friday 29th January 2016 explaining how he has made a difference by supporting the Re-Act Scotland charity for Syrian refugees. He demonstrated how he has achieved the 'Me and My World' section of the Junior Award Scheme Schools and provided an exemplar model for other pupils to follow. Very well done, Jonathan!

Jonathan's Re-Act Scotland Presentation from SciennesPS

Article 22 The right to have help if you are a refugee

Here's how you can help: support one of the international charities

• Mercy Corps
• British Red Cross Appeal
• Oxfam
• Save the Children’s Child Refugee Crisis Appeal
• Refugee Council Crisis Appeal
• UNHCR’s Emergency Appeal
• UNICEF
• The World Food Programme
• Refugee Action’s Emergency Appeal – the money raised will support refugees and people seeking asylum in the UK
• Or of course, support Re-Act Scotland locally here in Edinburgh

JGHS Donate a Pencil Case Appeal

On Friday 22nd January we welcomed former pupils Jessica, Katie and Anna to speak to our pupils at Assembly. The girls are now in their Sixth Year at James Gillespie's High School and are about to embark on a visit to Zwelibanzi High School in KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa, as part of a longstanding twinning between the cluster schools. Pupils and families have been asked to support JGHS's annual 'Donate a Pencil Case' appeal. Donations will be gratefully received and can be handed to the School Office until 9th February. Jessica, Katie and Anna will collect them before they fly off on 11th February.

 

Article 28  The right to learn