Aims
The aims of the Personal Projects are to encourage and enable students to:
- deepen knowledge and awareness of Sustainable Development Goals
- connect Sustainable Development Goals to the needs of one’s own community
- create a culture of action and foment awareness of our place within a global community
- participate in a sustained, self-directed inquiry within a global context
- generate creative new insights and develop deeper understandings through in-depth investigation
- demonstrate the skills, attitudes and knowledge required to complete a project over an extended period of time
- communicate effectively in a variety of situations
- demonstrate responsible action through, or as a result of, learning
- appreciate the process of learning and take pride in their accomplishments.
- strengthen the coherence between school identity as stipulated in San Silvestre´s mission and school life, furthering the correlation between mission and practice.
Rationale
- Transdisciplinary concepts
- Cross-curricular application
- Classroom without walls
- Service learning and subsequent skills development + support for the community
- In line with our vision/ mission statement
- In our working party, we are considering how to reshape education for the better. We are experiencing a global pandemic and communicable diseases are on the increase, which is a result of poor environmental management. Future generations need to have a solid understanding of the importance of sustainable living so that they may be a part of a safer, healthier future.
Soft skills
SDGs in Education
Vision and structure for EY
Vision and structure for Primary
Vision
Structure
Early Years – Suggestions?
I reckon EY would look at personal things as you suggested – washing hands, my place in the world etc. Still a project but internal. By primary, we can start reaching out into the community?
Primary
Our vision for Primary would be for students to leave the primary section with a sound knowledge of the sustainable development goals and their significance to the students as individuals as well as globally. The students will also have had the opportunity to develop soft skills, such as XXX. They would have had a range of experiences which would enable them to design their own personal projects in secondary.
Each grade would be allocated an SDG that aligns best with the students’ developmental stage and with their curricular targets. Each grade level would also be associated with a relevant service learning opportunity, with which they would maintain engagement throughout the year. During week 1 at the beginning of the year, when students are in the settle back in and ‘get to know you stage’ the SDG for that year could be introduced. The teachers of each grade would know the SDG that the grade is working on, it would be visible in classrooms, and teachers could look for ways that they could meet their curricular objectives using the SDG as a vehicle throughout the year. Throughout the year, the students would be encouraged to learn and practice the soft skills required to be successful in an end-of-year project. Contact would be maintained with their service learning opportunity, as appropriate, throughout the year. There could be opportunities for grade levels to run assemblies to share their learning and to educate each other.
At the end of the year, possibly during the final one or two weeks, the students would actively engage with their service learning project, possibly off timetable and with the support of the teachers as project mentors. This may involve trips to actively participate, on site development to raising awareness etc.
By the end of their career in primary, students will have a secure understanding of some of the SDGs and will have experienced a variety of service learning projects through which they will have seen these goals in action. In addition to knowledge and experience, they will bring to secondary a range of key soft skills which will support their individual and group endeavours, increasing the chances of success academically and personally in the future. The structured project approach in primary would allow the students to choose and develop their individual projects in secondary and ownership would be handed over to them.
Secondary
The vision for the secondary section is to give students the skills they need to be empowered to act and make changes in their communities as well as preparing them for success in the IB Diploma Program. We aim to do this by introducing personal projects.
The implementation of Sustainable Development Goals in the Secondary School will draw from the MYP curriculum in order to better prepare students for the Diploma Program. Teachers from all disciplines will be expected to incorporate the teaching of SDGs by making links between course curriculum and the SDGs, this could take the form of applying skills to real world problems or utilizing the manifestation of these global issues in the classroom as materials with which students hone their skills. The outcomes of this preparation will be evidenced in the students Personal Projects.
Students will complete two Personal Projects in secondary at crucial points in their Secondary trajectory in Form II before entering the IGCSE and at the end of Form IV before entering the IB Diploma Program. The building of awareness through more than one project is essential to providing the scaffolding necessary to fully prepare students for their IB studies. These projects will empower students to: decide what they want to learn about, identify what they already know, discover what they will need to know to complete the project, and create a proposal or criteria for completing it. Personal projects are student-centred, and they enable students to engage in practical explorations through a cycle of inquiry, action and reflection.Students will be better positioned to take on other independent projects such as the extended essay.
There will be a focus of Form II and Form IV as the end of key stages. Throughout the year all subjects will be required to make links in their teaching to the different SDGs. Depending on the subject this might be a 5 minute discussion or a focus of a whole topic.
Form II will focus on change within school and Form IV within the school community.
In Form II and Form IV the personal project will need to be introduced early in the first bimester. Students
start brainstorming ideas on topics they want their PP to focus on. In the last week of the first bimester they should have some time allocated to this where they will be taught key skills for the research and project design. During bimester 2 they should use some of their study period time to develop their project further. At the end of bimester 2 they would have some more skills lessons focused on the PP project and move into the development phase of the project. During bimester 2 they should also be assigned a teacher mentor depending on the focus of the PP. In the future we could use student mentors as part of developing leadership. They will continue working on the project in the study periods in bimester 3 with some time to develop the projects at the end and receive skills lessons. Projects should be presented at the end of bimester 4 in a Ted Talks style event.
Requirements
Primary
Teachers of every subject and every grade would need to explore the SGDs, see which ones are most suitable to which grade and where/ how their subject can be a key part of the SDG. An example might be Clean Water and Sanitation, which could connect English, Spanish, maths, science, PSHE, to name the obvious disciplinary connections.
Secondary
Teachers in every subject would need to identify links to SDGs and empthasise them when teaching. Time will be needed in the curriculum of FII and FIV for the delivery of skills lessons and the development of PPs. Each teacher would be required to mentor some students.
Vision and structure for Secondary
- Support skills development for the IB = more students opting to take them
- Last IB review = lack of transdisciplinary cooperation
- Choice – personal project
Rollout
- Week intro to SDG at start of year
- Strike while the iron is hot – everyone has already made huge changes, let’s maintain the motivation.