Project title: Global Awareness Network for Teachers (GANT)
Type of project: Creating Networks in order to e mbed Global Citizenship in Initial Teacher Education (ITE) and Schools
Duration: September 2004 to July 2008
Main funding body: Oxfam and Christian Aid
Areas of work: Schools and ITE
Target audience: pupils, teachers, trainee teachers and tutors/lecturers within ITE
Partners: School of Education , University of Nottingham (UoN), Faculty of Education, Nottingham Trent University (NTU)
Aims and objectives of the programme:
- To embed Global Citizenship into ITE courses
- To encourage and support schools in Nottingham and Nottinghamshire in integrating global citizenship into the life of the school
- To introduce a supportive global citizenship network for student teachers and enlarge an existing network for teachers to information share
Description
This project funded by both Oxfam (2004 – 7) and Christian Aid (2005 – 8) supports MUNDI's core work both within Initial Teacher Education (ITE) at the University of Nottingham (UoN), Nottingham Trent University (NTU) and also within schools.
The GANT project runs a combination of mandatory and voluntary sessions within a variety of courses including the PGCE, BA, Flexible PGCE, School Centered Initial Teacher Training (SCITT) and the Graduate Teacher Programme (GTP) at both HE Institutions. These sessions encourage, support and help develop the skills and knowledge of trainee teachers in the understanding, delivery and integration of global citizenship education and the global dimension in the classroom.
In the 2006/7 academic year, these mandatory and voluntary sessions were followed up by the development of a teacher and trainee teacher contact database in order to create a supportive Global Awareness Network for all teachers, newly qualified and more experienced. This database was then used to directly target named teachers at schools for specific events that are geographically located for both city and county schools. The evaluations from project events to date illustrate how directly targeting a named teacher and planning the event to meet current school needs in terms of the Every Child Matters (ECM) agenda has been a successful strategy. (please click on the link to read these evaluations)
Following meetings with course leaders in the previous two academic years MUNDI has started in 2007/8 exploring a more strategic input into the variety of teacher training courses (pathways) offered at the School of Education UoN in terms of contributing to the writing of course modules whilst at the same time continuing with a mandatory input into ITE courses at both institutions.
As well as these specific events described above MUNDI also responds to individual school requests to deliver staff meetings and/or INSET days on integrating global perspectives into the life of the school.
