Kings Norton Primary School
Aim and purpose
To encourage participation of the children.
Aims of the day
To bring together people who represent different parts of our community
to:
* share good practice and to plan for the future,
* develop opportunities, including the use of ICT, for young people to have a say in
developing safer ways of moving around our community,
* give advance notice of a follow up meeting at Millennium Point Birmingham Thursday 23rd October 2003 to evaluate the effectiveness of our work together and to plan for the future!
Description
The whole school was initially involved in this project and it arose from a school council issue that was raised concerning the safety of the local area and parental parking near the school. The representatives of school council made a presentation to the Local Ward Committee. Following on the success of this project in March 2001, the school decided to continue to network with primary and secondary schools in the local area, and it was decided to arrange an interschool conference morning in October 2002, as part of the Birmingham Year of Citizenship. In this we held the launch of the Birmingham Portal for the Young TransNet site (www.youngtransnet.org.uk).
Not only did the children and young people of our local community work together to share good practice, they also came together with the adults who could help in bringing their ideas into fruition. They had the opportunity to bring to the attention to the wider community the issues that are important to them. Action planning for a project that has real value in life has real value in education- Learning by doing. The morning was the beginning of a process to involve children working together from various primary, and secondary schools within the Education Action Zone, for the good of the local community and the children returned to their schools to
continue the process, with the view to meet again in October 2003 to celebrate everyone‚s achievements at the main Millennium Point in Birmingham in the Young People‚s Parliament meeting
Intended learning
The children were involved in using many high order skills, of presentation, language skills. They were required to speak to a variety of audiences and were asked to listen attentively and comment on speakers from different ages and professions. The children were also able to relate to adults and children form different cultures and who have different viewpoints and needs. Some of the children from other schools had differing levels of ability and all the children worked well together and began to build relationships.
Age group
On the conference day we had children from age 7-15 working closely together with adults.
Practice
Links to the curriculum
PHSE and Citizenship 2a:
The children will be able to research, discuss and debate topical issue and problems, which effect them.
PHSE and Citizenship
KS 2, 2k and also ICT 1a, 1b, 2a, 3a, 3b
The children will be able to use ICT in a helpful way to aid their presentation of facts to a wider audience.
English
1: The children will be able to speak clearly and fluently and confidently to different people in an appropriate style.
School / Community / Organistion Links
Local schools in Education Action Zone, Primary, Junior and secondary, working with adults from the transport department, education department of local Council, councillors, governors, adults from various organisations such as Sustrans, Young transnet Safe Routes to School.
Length of the activity
This was initially a day conference, which was to encourage schools to become more involved in their local area, through School Councils, with a view to meet again the following year in Millennium Point in Birmingham to share our sucesses and to continue action planning for the future- this has since become a springboard to develop an Education council which has one meeting and has asked to attend the local Transportation department to find out about local traffic planning and issues to help us understand more about how the system works. Our next visit will be going to the Houses of Parliament in June.
Final comments
What commenced as a request for the children in the school to make a short presentation to the local ward committee in March 2001 has now become the catalyst for the children of Kings Norton to particiapate fully in the development of their own local area and community, which is really exciting fot the children and adults involved!
Quote from Mrs Southey:
"We see this is an exciting chance to empower our children to take an interest in their local area and realise that they can make a difference to he conditions that we all live in. We see this as an opportunity for staff and children to meet the influential people in the city, a chance to network with the high profile conference delegates and look into opportunities to find support for citizenship work in education. Our children are not citizens of the future, they are citizens of today and we should allow them the opportunity to voice their opinions and look to their future with optimism."
Contact
Mrs Gina Southey
