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.
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 and our participation in Unicef's
Rights Respecting Schools programme:
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.
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 from a city
wide, to UK wide to international 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.
