Global Schools UK

A NEAD Project

Global Schools UK was a national project funded by DFID and managed by Leeds Development Education Centre.

NEAD was invited to contribute to the regional focus of this project as a result of our experience with the . This project involved NEAD staff in recruiting and supporting teachers in six secondary schools in our region, schools who wish to provide their students with a greater and deeper knowledge and understanding of the world they live in and the skills they need to fully and actively engage with it. The project ran from Autumn 2006 to March 2008. The six schools were supported to introduce and develop their ideas between October 2006 and December 2007. The last three months of the project were dedicated to disseminating the results of the project to other schools and educationalists locally, regionally and nationally.

Joined-up learning

All too often secondary students do not have a joined-up education. On a typical day they may move from Science to Maths to Geography to Design Technology to French, with no linkage between the different lessons or subject areas. This project aimed to make students’ understanding of international development issues more coherent. It worked with and supported teachers in at least six curriculum areas in each school to revise and devise coherent and mutually supportive schemes of work and lesson plans; so that, for example, cultural diversity issues dealt with in French are built upon in conflict resolution lessons run by History teachers, and enhanced by looking at values and perceptions in English, and so on. To enable this not only did NEAD provide help and support, but each of the participating schools were awarded a grant of £1000 for new resources, INSET provision, bringing in external support, and so on.

The success of the project required the support and commitment of the Governors, Headteachers and Senior Management Teams as well as that of Heads of Department and subject teachers in each of the participating schools.

Our initial letter to schools — inviting their participation in this project — elicited 12 positive responses. We then selected the lucky six.

Project updates

The overall results of this project were due to be posted on the project website hosted by Leeds DEC.