Holy Family is an accredited Global Learning School. Global learning is essentially education for a fair and sustainable world. Key global learning concepts include poverty, global inequality, social justice, sustainable development and global interdependence. We recently rebranded our World Around Us topics to include the themes of Global learning in our planning.
Global learning helps pupils make sense of the increasingly globalised, complex and rapidly changing world in which they live. It enables pupils to think critically about world issues and to develop an awareness of the impact our own actions can have on others. A holistic approach to global learning equips young people with the essential knowledge, skills, attitudes and dispositions that will enable them to realise their potential and make a positive contribution to our world.
Global Learning is not an add-on to the curriculum, but rather provides an important lens through which to explore and enhance the existing curriculum strands, topics and skills. Global learning complements the other initiatives and award schemes that Holy Family has already committed to, such as Eco-Schools, International Schools and Rights Respecting Schools.
Uganda / Connecting Classrooms
For many years Holy Family has had close links with Uganda. The British Council Connecting Classrooms funding has allowed teachers from Holy Family to travel to Uganda and teachers from Uganda to travel to Belfast. This has been spiritually uplifting experience for the whole school. We were able to experience life for the children of St. Paul's Primary School through photographs, videos and stories from the teachers. The reciprocal visits are a huge celebration event in each school community and Parish. Shared learning projects are a key focus of our partnerships and we feel we can gain so much knowledge from each other. The Ugandan prayer “God is Good, all the time, all the time, God is Good” has become one of our Holy Family assembly favourites and the African song “Maliswee” is a guaranteed crowd pleaser in our choir’s repertoire!
Holy Family is part of a cluster of Belfast schools; St Kevin’s, Holy Trinity and St Teresa’s who all have Ugandan Partners. Below is a photograph of the team planning together with Emmanuel, the Ugandan Coordinator.
Unfortunately, the 2020 trip to Uganda was cancelled in light of the Coronavirus crisis and there are currently no plans to travel but we still hope to maintain ties with our friends in Uganda.
Have a look at a slideshow of photographs from previous visits!
What is the World Around Us?
Children are naturally curious and often ask profound questions about themselves and the nature of the world around them. The purpose of this area of learning is to find age appropriate answers to some of these big questions.
The World Around Us (WAU) is one of the six Areas of Learning in the Northern Ireland Curriculum. It focuses on the development of knowledge, skills and understanding in Geography, History, Science and Technology.
Holy Family aims to retain the best of current practice within the three subjects, while developing a topic/theme based approach to this area of learning, and making relevant connections across all areas of learning.
Three contributory elements within the World Around Us
Geography explores the relationship between the earth and its people through the study of the environment, place and space. It develops knowledge of places and environments throughout the world, an understanding of maps and a range of investigative and problem solving skills both inside and outside the classroom. Children should develop knowledge and understanding of their place in the world, other places and the processes which affect the people, conditions and life in that place. Children should also explore ideas about people, jobs, the weather and the environment both locally and globally and begin to consider their part in maintaining a fair and sustainable world.
History is concerned with the concepts of sequence and time and with evidence which allows us to find out what happened in the past. The concepts of chronology, change/continuity, empathy and cause and effect will be developed through investigation of life in the past.
Children should gain an awareness of their past and changes which have occurred over time through examining evidence, looking at photographs, watching TV and multimedia clips and listening to stories.
Children will recognise the importance of evidence in giving a picture of the past but will understand that there can be different interpretations of this depending on how it is viewed.
Science and Technology aims to stimulate a child’s curiosity in finding out why things happen in the way they do. It teaches methods of enquiry and investigation to stimulate creative thought. Children learn to ask scientific questions and begin to appreciate the way science will affect their future on a personal, national, and global level.
Children should have opportunities to develop the skills of Science and Technology and to develop awareness of the relevance and importance of Science and Technology in everyday life in finding out about themselves, the environment, the material and physical world.
The World Around Us is presented as four inter-related strands that connect learning.
- Interdependence
- Place
- Movement and Energy
- Change Over Time
