Allatt House
CVS
5 West Parade Road
Scarborough YO12 5ED

The forum in Scarborough was one of a series of fora taking place across the Yorkshire and Humber region. These fora are part of a consultation process funded by the Department for International Development (DfiD) in preparation for the setting up of a regional strategy for global education in schools.

It was agreed to hold a forum in Scarborough where there is no Development Education Centre (DEC) to ensure that people on the east coast had an opportunity to be part of the consultation process.

The Scarborough and Whitby area are geographically in North Yorkshire but do not fall easily within the remit of Craven or even Hull DECs. Therefore it was agreed that staff from the Centre for Global Education in York would facilitate the forum in Scarborough.

Publicity for the event was circulated in a variety of ways:

• Email circulation to 300 voluntary organisations via the North Yorkshire Forum for Voluntary Organisations
• Scarborough Friends Meeting House (Quakers)
• Next Generation Now - Andy Sharpe
• Scarborough College
• North Yorkshire Schools Advisory Service (2 advisers)
• Save the Children Fund
• VSO

Programme:

• Welcome and Introductions
• Schools responding to the wider world
• What should 'entitlement' be?
• Consultation initiative - an explanation
• Small group discussion - mapping our regions contribution
• Recommendations for the future

Outcomes

There was an initial brainstorm about how people saw the world. This produced both positive and negative viewpoints:

inequality; physical beauty; consumerism; diverse; small; awe inspiring; greed; unjust; unfair trade; polluted; devastation; changing; ingenious; old; impotence; violent.

This was followed by a wide ranging discussion about work in schools including:

• whether the global dimension was included in the ethos and curriculum
  
• what are the possibilities with the youngest children.

Following the activity Global Steps (www.bestfootforward.com) a discussion took place on resources for young children and how often teachers were very good at adapting activities for use with their own classes. It was felt that it is important the global dimension is embedded in the curriculum at the very earliest stages; therefore there needs to be more training for early years teachers and greater resources to implement this.Resources for early years and Key Sages 1/2 were made available.

The video Developing Global Citizens in Secondary Schools was viewed.

Attendance

Two people attended the forum - a reception class teacher who was also the geography curriculum coordinator for the school and an FE teacher.

The lack of participants could have been for a number of reasons including:

• Not offering supply cover for teachers to attend
  
• The fact that traditionally there has been a lack of any development or global education input in this area of Yorkshire.
  
• However on the positive side it was felt that it had been a worthwhile event in raising awareness and by highlighting the need for development and global education in this area.
  
• Links have been established with Katharine Bruce, Citizenship Adviser in North Yorkshire and a course is being planned for Spring 2002.

Recommendations from forum

• Training - to develop teachers own knowledge and skills
  
• Time to work with others and reflect on their practice
  
• Early years resources - printed, electronic & training
  
• Monies for supply cover