Understanding The Council of All Beings In Climate Teaching

The Council of All Beings is a series of activities designed to connect us with the living Earth and the creatures with whom we share it.

Intellectually we can see that we are all a part of nature, but we behave as if we are apart from it. Even talking about ‘the environment’ seems to separate us from the natural world as if we were outside it. This activity is inspired from the Work That Reconnects (WTR) organisation. It is designed to help our children and young people grow a sense of their ecological selves and develop compassion for all living things on this planet in the face of human destruction.

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Climate Curriculum

Land Use: Growing Energy and Fuel

9 Nov 2020

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      string(2807) "it?”Ask the children to get together in pairs. “Tell your friend what is special about your tree.” Falling leavesWhen leaves are thrown into the air and allowed to drift slowly to the ground, they make interesting shapes and patterns as they fall. Demonstrate this to the children and then tell them to go and experiment with different leaves until they find one that makes a pattern they really like. Ask them to bring it back and when all the children are together, ask each child to show the shapes his or her leaf makes as it falls to the ground.Active Listening At the end of the walk (you needn’t have gone very far) draw the children into a circle and tell them to pair off. Each child then tells their partner what they liked best about the walk. Person A should talk briefly for 2-3 minutes, with B just listening attentively. Then B speaks and A listens. Ask each child to report briefly to the whole group something their partner said about the walk. In this way each child gets an opportunity to talk to one other person about their feelings. This avoids any embarrassment about sharing feelings with a large group. It is also often easier to report back on what someone else has said, rather than on one’s own responses. Before leaving the trees, if possible, collect one leaf for each child in the group and put all the leaves in a bag. Back in the classroom ask each child in turn to take a leaf from the bag. Ask them to close their eyes:“With your eyes closed, feel your leaf very carefully. Pay attention to the texture, to any ridges or soft bits, hard bits…. (wait about 45 seconds) now open your eyes and look at your leaf very closely for a further minute. Smell your leaf.”Collect all the leaves in the bag and ask the children to gather either in a circle on the carpet or round a table. Empty the bag onto the carpet/table and ask the children to find ‘their’ leaf. This usually takes only seconds. Ask the children to say how they recognised ‘their’ leaf. It is always interesting to hear the imaginative ways children talk about their leaves; it is surprising what shapes or animals or things they have ‘seen’ in their leaf. Once they have examined a leaf in detail so they can pick it out in a crowd they feel that somehow it ‘belongs’ to them. The children are often very attached to their leaf and want to keep it.Aesthetic appreciationFollowing this activity, you can secure children’s aesthetic understanding of the wonder of nature through art-work or creative writing. Children can make detailed drawings of their leaves, or impressionistic paintings or write a poem or creative prose about their leaves. Others may prefer to reflect on a single tree or the whole woodland. "
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Climate Curriculum

Aesthetic and Ecological Understanding in Lower Key Stage 2

8 Oct 2020

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      string(5062) "Councils have several statutory duties relating to youth participation; to ensure all young people participate in education or training. This Local Government Association report paints a fragmented picture of 17 funding streams managed by eight departments or agencies, spending more than £10 billion a year. This results in a lack of join-up at a local level and a system that doesn’t work for everyone and many young people fall through the gaps.Furthermore, the unexpected Covid-19 crisis has only exacerbated a bad situation into a dire one that calls on immediate Government action to tackle the disproportionate effect of the crisis on young people. Some of these will demand a swift response with quick measures while others, for example, more structural reforms, a medium-term response.Councils and combined authorities are already working closely with employers, colleges and many others involved in education and job-training to try and ensure nobody is left behind after we get through this crisis. However, they are hamstrung by a national employment and skills system that is increasingly centralised and ineffective.The Government needs to use the Spending Review to devolve careers advice, post-16 and skills budgets and powers to local areas. This would allow councils, schools, colleges and employers to work together to improve provision for young people so that they can get on in life. They are ideally placed to bring employment and skills initiatives together.This report makes several key recommendations to support an inclusive economic recovery – helping young people to ensure that the next generation doesn’t become a lost ‘pandemic generation’ with scars for years to come.Key Recommendations for Government:Set up a Youth Employment and Skills Taskforce and appoint a Youth Minister. The absence of a youth participation strategy and action plan to bring together the work of different Whitehall departments or a Minister with overall responsibility demonstrates an ineffective use of limited resources. The appointment of a Youth Minister should be to provide a rapid and focussed response to prevent a lost ‘pandemic generation’ – working across Whitehall and having oversight of the Youth Employment and Skills (YES) Taskforce. Work with councils and combined authorities to localise investment in the new active labour programmes for those out of work. 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The report recommends by 2022 Government should:Trial at least one Work Local pathfinder in each region across England. Establish an integrated Youth Employment and Skills (YES) Service. Give councils and combined authorities the power and resources to co-design and co-commission a local career offer. Provide dedicated careers / transition support funding for secondary schools (and academies) to fulfil their responsibilities. Give councils and combined authorities’ the tools and resources to enable them to plan a coherent post-16 offer. Provide a multi-year flexible funding pot to give additional support to secure/ sustain employment or training.Link: Re-Thinking Youth Participation for the Present and Next Generation: Education To Employment"
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Leadership

Re-Thinking Youth Participation for the Present and Next Generation: Education To Employment

6 Oct 2020

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Digital Learning

Recovery and Resilience Development Through Imaginative Play

6 Oct 2020