The global dimension and the school curriculum
The development of pupils' global perspectives and understanding of global issues will depend on the planned inclusion in the curriculum of the key concepts, skills, values and attitudes associated with the global dimension. The curricula for England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland all contain references to values and attitudes, either explicitly or implicitly. The links below will help you check the references in your own curriculum.
For the first time, the National Curriculum for England, for example, contains a detailed statement about the values, aims and purposes of the curriculum. The statement reflects the need for children to be educated about global issues and about their links with people, places and events around the world. The statement underpins the entire statutory curriculum and can be used to engender discussion about the whole curriculum and ethos of the school. It is an important reference point for debate relating to decisions made about whole-school curriculum issues and about schemes of work in different subject areas and for different age groups.
You can now go to the appropriate websites from the links below and look at, and make notes on, references to the global dimension.
National Curriculum On-line
National Curriculum On-line Click on 'Information about the National Curriculum from the teacher handbooks'. Now click on 'Statement of values'.
Welsh Assembly Government's Department for Education Lifelong Learning and Skills (DELLS)
DELLS Click on 'Curriculum & Assessment', 'More information on primary curriculum and assessment', 'Key Stage Curriculum', 'Other Statutory requirements' and then 'Personal and Social Education'. Now click on the related publications and look at the framework for Key Stages 1-4 in Wales.
The Northern Ireland Council for the Curriculum, Examinations and Assessment (CCEA)
CCEA Click on 'Teachers', 'Key Stage 1 & 2', 'Curriculum Support', and then 'Mutual Understanding and Cultural Heritage: Cross Curricular Guidance Materials'.
Learning and Teaching Scotland
Learning and Teaching Scotland Click on 'National Grid for Learning Scotland' (NGfL Scotland). If you type 'citizenship' in the search box at the top of the page, for example, you will see that there are many references to citizenship in this site. You will also find a lot of information if you use the drop-down menu and select '5-14 curriculum' and 'National Qualifications'. The latter contains an electronic library of materials that support the new national qualifications.
Activity Resources:
- Images
- Interactive
- Sound
- Text
- Video
Activity
- Go to the 'Cool Planet' section of the Oxfam web site: Oxfam
- Click on 'Global citizenship' and then click on 'Oxfam's curriculum for global citizenship'.
- Click on 'Curriculum for global citizenship' again and select the age group you require.
- Discuss the information with colleagues, and identify the following:
- what your school is already doing;
- what you would like your school to do in the future.
- Keep notes on what you have identified, for later in the unit.
