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Local and Global Citizenship

'Local and Global Citizenship' was introduced into Beechlawn in September 2006 as part of the Revised Northern Ireland Curriculum.

Citizenship aims to encourage young people to actively participate in their own learning and to explore and share ideas with others in order for them to become informed and responsible participants in society. The content is based around four key concepts in local, national, European and global contexts:

¨      Diversity and Inclusion
¨      Equality and Social Justice
¨      Democracy and Participation
¨      Human Rights and Social Responsibility

It includes the following recurring themes:

¨      Media and current affairs
¨      Aspects of the law
¨      Challenging stereotypes and prejudice
¨      Conflict resolution and conflict management
¨      The role of the individual, society and the government

All these themes are covered over pupils five years in Beechlawn.

In Year 8 the main focus is on Diversity & Inclusion

In Year 9 the main focus is Human Rights & Social Responsibility.
In Year 10 the main focus is Democracy and Participation.
Year 11 and 12 look at these three themes in greater depth.

Year 10 enjoy trips to Stormont to help make 'Democracy and Active Participation' come to life for them.

In the third term last year Beechlawn were at the exciting stage of setting up a School's Council. Initially this will involve Year 9 pupils and then hopefully will be rolled out over the next few years.

The School Council is a very exciting project to be involved in. It is very important that pupils have a role in making some of the decisions in school. The school would like to hear from pupils about how they think the school could be improved. The School Council is a forum where pupils can raise issues for the school to consider. Schools work better when pupils and teachers are working together and listening to each other.

Being a School Councillor

On Wednesday 20^th May '09 all Year 9 pupils enjoyed a morning of Schools Council planning and information workshops. Some of the topics they discussed were:

a)     Democracy alive in the classroom.
b)     Who has the power in school?
c)      What are student/ school council's for?
d)     Function of the school council
e)     Qualities of a good student councillor
f)       Election / Nominating/ Manifesto process

Pupils had the opportunity to put themselves forward to be nominated and to nominate others in their class. Over the next ten days Year 9 spent time in each subject area preparing for their election campaign designing posters, drawing up their manifesto and convincing others to vote for them! The Year 9 corridor was hot with election fever with superb manifestos which were videoed and played to all year 9 in a special assembly. School Council elections took place on the 2^nd June and we are very fortunate that the Mayor of Lisburn - Councillor Ronnie Crawford attended these elections and oversaw the voting - no cheating allowed!
The victorious councilors were as follows:

9A - Emma Lowry
        Stephanie Moore

9B - Scott Braithwaite
      Samuel Kennedy

9C - Matthew Ginn
        Christopher Kane

These new councillors are looking forward to their forthcoming visit to Lisburn Civic centre to meet our new Lord Mayor of Lisburn and get some hints and ideas!!

Watch this space as these pupils meet to discuss and raise issues important to pupils for school management to consider.