Local

Local initiatives give a context to learning and pupils readily see the relevance of coursework to their own lives.

Waste to Energy is a two-day event organised by Careers Scotland. The event was piloted in September 2003 at the Cromarty Centre. Four teams of four senior pupils from Ross-shire schools worked to produce a feasibility study for a simulated proposal to set up an energy waste plant at Nigg that would convert waste products into usable energy.

Participants visited a landfill site at Aviemore and heard a wide range of presentations from business and environmental interests. The teams then researched the proposal and presented their findings and recommendations to a panel of eminent judges.

Considerations of the effects of the proposal on employment, tourism, communities, roads and infrastructure etc. were considered.

The Cromarty event was successful in igniting enthusiasm amongst the participants, with a high level of commitment throughout the two days. Each team demonstrated group working and problem solving, with good presentation skills and an understanding of the economic and environmental issues.

A team of five pupils from Fortrose Academy were present, working with Moveonup Television to document the event.

This model clearly worked well and could be adapted to suit local circumstances. The subsequent proposal to site a nuclear submarine decommissioning facility at the Nigg site may provide a real life scenario.

Shetland
A report by Gordon Stove of a range of local initiatives taking place in the Shetland Isles

Enterprise in Education

1. Mrs. Beryl Smith Enterprise Education Support Worker

Mrs. Smith has been Enterprise Education Support worker from Jan 96 until very recently.

This 1 day a week post allowed Mrs. Smith a primary teacher at Sandwick Junior High school the chance be trained in and subsequently train others to teach pupils Enterprise Skills. Courses attended included:

These courses all can be grouped under the heading of ‘Schools Enterprise Programme (SEP).

The national picture is 25% of primary staff are trained to deliver the SEP but in Shetland out of 34 primary schools - there are only 3 that have no staff trained – and these are all one-teacher schools. Shetland has also overtaken National targets with respect to the number of enterprise experiences enjoyed by pupils in its primary schools. Over 60% of primary schools have embarked on two (or more) enterprise related activities a year and taken this in their stride. (The national target is 30%).

Mrs. Smith is convinced that Shetland’s (primary) schools are in broad support of the Enterprise Programme. Staff who run SEP tend to be enthusiastic, there are policies and development plans for enterprise activities in the majority of primary schools. Even those schools who say that they have done ‘nothing’ about enterprise can identify various aspects of the school life such as magazine production, charity fund-raising, school concerts, sales, environmental initiatives such as our local litter initiative ‘The Voar Redd up’.

Work in these cases is required to match up requirements of enterprise with the existing activities.

Mrs. Smith also piloted the new programme for Secondary 1&2 ‘Up for Enterprise’ in October 2002 with secondary 2 pupils in Sandwick. There is a background of poor uptake for any enterprise related activity in Secondary 1&2 due to factors such as timetable, lack of training and it seems a pity that the wealth of enterprise experience built up in our primary school is all too frequently ignored from the ages of 12-16.

Her experiences here were very positive – the pupils all completed evaluations and it is planned to have ‘Up for enterprise’ running in her school consuming 20 hours each year in Secondary 1&2.

All schools in Shetland are due to be introduced to the ‘Up for Enterprise’ programme imminently although it is not to be compulsory. However it is part of the service level agreement between Careers Scotland and Education/schools.

Careers Scotland locally have a target of having 2 teachers trained in Schools Enterprise Programme in every reasonably sized Secondary school and one S1 or S2 project running by end of 2003/4 session.

An Enterprise Showcase in April 2002 was entered by 13 schools and was won by Brae Primary School. The deputy head outlined the positive effect the activity had had in the upper primary school “Each pupil felt involved- there was a great sense of achievement. Everyone was keen to talk about the enterprise, especially once it had done well in the enterprise showcase. Through the writing exercises involved (job applications, evaluations, adverts, instruction sheets for the packs) many of the pupils had developed a new range of skills that were not previously on display in the normal classroom setting’.

An Enterprise Challenge was also held in April 2002 in Lerwick and over 500 children from 20 schools attended this and the Enterprise showcase mentioned above over 3 days.

Some of the other best practices in the area of Schools Enterprise Programmes in Shetland are listed below.

Fair Isle primary (Winner of the Motorola Award 2002)

This enterprise wanted to focus the ideas of the pupils on designing, marketing, producing (inc. quality control) and selling tourist souvenirs e.g. knitted clothes for teddy bears, a Fair Isle mouse made of sea shells etc. to the Cruise liners which visit the Isles annually. A committee with separate roles ran the enterprise which in 2002 made in the region of £2000

A composite class of 22 pupils in p5/6 developed the FABS magazine. The surprising thing about this activity was the degree to which it was pupil led. It is a good example of the ‘can do’ mentality that the Enterprise programme is trying to promote. FABS includes writing on fashion, beauty, competitions and pupils were keyed up on production costs, looked closely at presentation and developed some strong computer skills from researching for articles on the internet to preparing power-point presentations on their work.

Puppet Performers – A good example of how one project can meet several objectives – technology – pupils with parental assistance designed and built a puppet theatre. Expressive arts – built the puppets, wrote the plays. Working with Others – met to discuss, plan, booked transport, arranged shows in other schools. Mathematics – Bookkeeping and handling money.

Many of our schools Health Promoting and some have Healthy Eating weeks. This school had their P6&7 ran the healthy eating tuck shop with what the teacher says were a well-organised committee. The pupils do all the necessary work, pricing, publicity, stock taking etc. Asked about the project, those involved said, “It’s ours.”

2. Mrs. Laureen Johnson ‘Enterprise in Education’ and ‘Excellence in Education Business Links’ officer.

Mrs. Johnson has been seconded to assist with the implementation of the ‘Determined to Succeed’ recommendations contained in the Scottish Executive report of December 2002. As part of this work she has researched and documented a lot of what has been going on in Shetland schools with regard to enterprise over the last year.

Mrs. Johnson was able to give a good description of what Enterprise in Education really meant. She sees EiE as the development of our young people to work together towards an end whether it be selling as product, providing a service or meeting a need.

The enterprise aspect is understood by schools to be the earlier mentioned Schools Enterprise Programme and the ‘Young Enterprise Scotland’ programme.

In addition to this there are local initiatives involving local authority planning and/or various schools including the organisation of a Science Fair, an Astronomy club, the visit of the Sci-Fun roadshow of Edinburgh University, the Scottish Space School Foundation which has seen two of our pupils reach the final stages of a competition on Space research.

Mrs. Johnson regrets that in her research she has found that there is a lack of (structured) enterprise activities in all Shetland’s schools between Secondary 1 & 4. The pilot in Sandwick is mentioned and that it is likely that Shetland will be following national timings in training staff in 'Up for Enterprise’ this session with full implementation in 2004-5.

She also notes that the local authority requests that schools mention enterprise in their development plans in 2003-4 and plan to meet the main requirements of the Determined to Succeed. She also notes that an increase in the provision of enterprise activities in primaries is not immediately required by anyone.

Mrs. Johnson also surveyed the experiences of teachers involved in the Schools Enterprise Programme over the last year –

Pupil Enjoyment
Very Good	19
Good to Very Good	1
Good	7

‘Very well motivated’ ‘they enjoyed different parts of the activity, different aspects’

Pupil Learning
Very Good	17
Good	7

What was learned? Here comments were- working together and in a team, getting an idea of what business is about, self-esteem, dealing with real situations, management of time, money handling,

Some teachers commented that it is better to try to fit the enterprise activity to the class rather than the other way around.

Mr. Henry has truly linked the worlds of Enterprise, Citizenship, Community involvement and Sustainability with a pet project he has worked at over the last 10-12 years. He has developed a unique course on the fish-farming industry in Shetland for use by Secondary three pupils in his school. He is in the happy position of having developed strong links to a number of local industries and the North Atlantic Fisheries College (NAFC) that is situated in the local town.

The content of the course knits together the economic, environmental, biological, and diverse nature of one of the Shetland Islands’ biggest industries. Course chapter titles are listed below:

Mr. Henry is happy for course materials to be distributed to anyone who wants a copy. He estimates that 30-40 young people have found a career in the local aquaculture industry as an indirect result of their experience on this course. The funding package that allows Mr. Henry to proceed with visits and course practical work comes from a source that other schools in peripheral regions may wish to examine - namely the Crown Estate Commission.

This Government quango collects rent for the seabed that lies beneath salmon and mussel rafts in our waters. They donated some £7000 for microscopes and a multimedia monitor to assist in the delivery of the course (and gained a lot of positive PR on the way)

Without exception the local industry see this development as a model of good practice in Schools- Industry links and the pupils who participate benefit both in terms of potential employment but also in learning about the industry in a practical way. There is an assessment (Locally generated) at the end of the course.

Other schools in Shetland cannot devote a whole chunk of time to the execution of the course and also would have practical difficulties in travelling to the NAFC, but a couple are using parts of Mr. Henry’s notes in their Nautical Studies programme of study.

The historical piecemeal development of fish farming activities is much more regulated now, and there are a number of opportunities for our young people in aspects of the industry as diverse as environmental monitoring, planning regulation, fish feeding and marketing and distribution.

With the advent of large-scale mussel production in the Isles (Set to expand from 3000 tonnes to 11000 tonnes this winter) a new and exciting growth industry is maturing to compliment the salmon trade.

The way that the course is run demonstrates that in a secondary school there is still enough flexibility in the curriculum to meet what the Head teacher clearly sees as a priority in the schools provision.

Lunnasting are also featured in the WWF/Scottish Hydro Electric Bright Sparks Awards scheme in 2000 as they demonstrated how adding a ‘global dimension’ could help pupils to develop informed attitudes. The catalyst for this was a visit by a dance group from West Africa to Shetland. After an afternoon of dance and drumming a project was set up to explore the similarities and differences between the two communities. Focusing on two core themes ‘Water and Africa’ the children became actively involved in gathering information, critically reflecting, reacting personally, offering solutions, making improvements to water supply at home and in Africa and a number of outcomes were achieved including:

Role play, researching disease problems, carrying out scientific experiments, developing an expressive arts project, writing letters to spread the word of what was being achieves, constructing a new world map in the playground, visiting a water treatment plant, and many other activities contributed to achieving the outcomes.