Networking Event: Engaging Schools In

Networking Event: Engaging Schools In

Conference report

Networking event: Engaging schools in

community resilience

Education Scotland’s community resilience network event took place on the 31st October 2016. Delegates attended from across Scotland to explore and discuss integrating community resilienceinto Curriculum for Excellence (CfE). Delegates were a mix of teachers, local authority education officers, third sector organisations and local authority community resilience, flood, emergency planning and civil contingency officers.

In addition to hearing about good practice from around the country, delegates participated in tasks and discussions:

Presentations from the event are available to download until Friday 18th November from Education Scotland’s Sciences Filedrop website at:

Username: Genscience

Password: D!scov3ry!

Please see folder marked ‘Networking Event 31st October’.

Discussions:

Task 1:Discuss embedding wider aspects of resilience into Curriculum for Excellence

Task 2: Next steps

Some answers were recorded on flip chart paper and Twitter and have been collated below. Hyperlinks to documents and resources have been inserted where relevant. For images of the day search for #CommunityRes on Twitter.

Presenters:

Shona Horn SSEN and Lee Cruickshank Talkmore theatre

Catherine Dickson Met Office Advisor

Dr Margaret Ritchie Highland Council

Julie Robertson Our Resilient Glasgow

Ian Menzies Senior Education Officer Education Scotland

David Munroe Resilience Professional Edinburgh City Council

Marketplace:

Kirkstyle PS East Ayrshire, Resilient Glasgow, Resilience and STEM Highland Council, SEPA, Met Office, Youthlink, Scottish Flood Forum, SSEN, Reselfie, Essex County Council, Scottish Council for Development and Industry (SCDI) and Eco-Schools Scotland

Presentations

Presentations on the day focussed on wider resilience themes to encourage everyone to consider how resilience relates to them and their setting.

Shona Horn SSEN and Catherine Dickson Met Office Advisor

The first two presentationsby Shona Horn and Catherine Dickson focused on utility failure and severe weather and how this can impact on you. Shona was joined on stage by Lee Cruikshank from Talkmore Theatre Company who shared information about a theatre pilot SSEN are sponsoring to raise awareness of resilience through theatre work.

Dr Margaret Ritchie Science Curriculum Development Officer, Highland Council

and Julie Robertson Sustainable Glasgow Assistant Manager

Margaret’s presentation focused on links with STEM and promoting community resilience through STEM Ambassadors. Julie Robertson discussed Glasgow City Council’s place in the world as a resilient city and how the recently published strategies link with education.

Ian Menzies Senior Education Officer Education Scotland

and David Munroe Resilience Specialist, Edinburgh City Council

Ian Menzies shared with everyone an overview of Developing Scotland’s Young Workforce (DYW) and Learning for sustainability (LfS) and how working with community resilience professionals will help schools engage with these agendas. He was followed by David Munroe who was able to offer a practical account of what this looks like in a school through sharing with everyone lessons he has planned with a teacher from Drummond Community High School.

Market place

This event was supported by a thriving market place. Contributors included:

  • Kirkstyle Primary School – East Ayrshire
  • Resilient Glasgow
  • Resilience and STEM at Highland Council
  • SEPA
  • Met Office
  • Youthlink Scotland
  • Scottish Flood Forum
  • SSEN
  • ‘Reselfie’
  • Essex County Council
  • SCDI (Scottish Council for Development and Industry)
  • Eco-Schools Scotland

Two conversations

The day was also built aroundtasks and discussions. Some answers were recorded on flipchart paper and have been collated below.

Task 1 – Work collaboratively to create topics/approaches schools could use to practically deliver community resilience through the curriculum

Each table had a mix of education colleagues, resilience professional and colleagues from the third sector. For the firsttask the delegates were asked to reflect on the presentations on utility failure and severe weather and discuss how this could be integrated into CfE and promote partnership working.

Ideas presented included:

  • Local events – allow key people to connect
  • Pilot schools in each authority
  • Involve teachers and pupils in developments
  • Flood Risk Management Officers to give presentations on types of flood risk and SuDS(Sustainable Urban Drainage Systems) planning etc.
  • Newsletters raising awareness of school and education resources
  • Community case studies, updated over time
  • Clear CfE objectives identified
  • Local and worldwide case studies shared

Task 2 – Our local contexts

For the second task the delegates were seated in local authority groups and were asked to identify at least one idea they could take away with them and begin implementing. Here are some ideas from East Dunbartonshire:

  • Introduce the UN stop disasters game
  • Set up a weather station
  • Digi maps to compare past/present areas
  • World of Work – contact outside agencies and ask them to share their knowledge and understanding and investigate practically
  • Pupils to work cooperatively to solve a given scenario – flood prevention; Royal Academy of Engineering; STEM Ambassadors
  • Write up investigation/report – literacy links: genre features
  • Identify climate changes locally
  • Work with Met Office
  • ‘Design’ house/building/town identify threats/causes and solutions/strategies
  • Drainage officer to work with teachers to identify local flood risk and flood management.

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