Welcome to our Global Learning Projects page! Below you will find a blog of all our learning, as we implement the 17 Sustainable Development Global Goals into our curriculum.

Fairtrade Fortnight Feb/Mar 2020

Over the past two weeks we have been finding out about Fairtrade Fortnight, a global initiative which helps campaign for fairer prices and rights for those people in the world that produce some of our much needed products. The choices we make when we buy things like chocolate, rice, tea, coffee, cotton clothes, even leather for footballs can mean the difference between someone making a good living wage and someone not being fairly paid for their hard work. 

Posters have been up around school to draw attention to this year's theme which is "She Deserves Fairtrade". Many of the workers who produce the crops we rely on are women, and their voices sometimes struggle to be heard. Only Fairtrade farmers have an equal say in making decisions that affect their lives, and we should be supporting this with our buying choices. Fairtrade schemes can fund education for these women, and they can learn leadership skills, teaming up with other women to create a community where they can earn more income.

The children all recognise the Fairtrade symbol now - so get them to help you look out for it in the supermarket!

World Wildlife Day 20th March 2019

This year's theme was Life Below Water, linking with the UN's Global Goal 14 which mainly aims to reduce the pollution in our oceans and prevent over-fishing. Perhaps there was something we at Hertford St Andrew could do to make our voices heard about this important issue? The children signed petitions, wrote sentences, letters and postcards expressing their feelings. We will send a selection of these to our MP, Mark Prisk, to see if he can pass our views to the government. We hope that raising this awareness with the children about playing their part in global issues will stay with them as they become young adults taking on responsibility for our planet's future. 

Human Rights Day 09/01/19

Today we marked Human Rights Day across the school as part of our global awareness. In 1948 the Universal Declaration of Human Rights was signed, a milestone document that acknowledged the equal rights that all human beings were entitled to across the world. Around the school we talked about standing up for our rights and those of others. We discussed ways that we could take action in our own daily lives to uphold these rights and promote the kinship of all human beings.

International Week 5-9 November 2018

Wow! What an exciting week we have had here at Hertford St Andrew celebrating International Week! We have so many families in our school community from other countries around the world and all of the children have really enjoyed learning about these countries as well as their focus country in their class. A HUGE thank you to all the parents and carers who sent in objects and food from other countries for the children to see and taste, and to those who came in to see our learning on Friday afternoon. It was a lively, colourful and noisy exhibition with plenty to see! Each class chose a different book and country to study in greater depth. EYFS had been looking at China, Y1 had chosen Kenya, Y2 explored India, Y3 travelled to Australia, Y4 focussed on Costa Rica and Y5/6 had been to Brazil! There were also foods to taste, flags to colour, a world map to mark on all the places we have been and come from, and even instruments to play. We think Mr Chapman has an undiscovered talent for playing the bongo drums! All the fantastic displays made our visitors feel as though they had been transported to different places around the world thanks to the effort and hard work of the children and creative ideas from the teachers! We hope you enjoyed the exhibition.

International Day of Peace 21 st September 2018

Our school celebrated with many thousands of others around the world on Friday 21st September which was International Day of Peace. This important day began in 1981 and was organised by the United Nations General Assembly to provide a globally-shared date for all humanity to commit to peace above all differences and to contribute to building a culture of peace. There were many different activities going on around school to promote this. Many classes enjoyed peaceful moments of meditation including thoughts of how we could make a culture of peacemaking and peacefulness in our school. Some children created poems about peace, and Year 4 created a superb rainbow peace sign which forms the centre of our display. Year 1 made pinwheels for peace including their thoughts about how to be peaceful and what peace means to them. The children had so many fantastic ideas and made our first celebration of a global day really special!

Send My Friend To School Campaign 2018 

We have been supporting the Send My Friend To School campaign in the UK. It is about persuading the UK government to sign the Safe Schools Declaration to support all children being able to go to school safely by 2030. We learned about the barriers to education and how we can make schools safe. Every learner in KS1 and KS2 made a Safer Schools poster to support this campaign. 

We asked our local MP Mark Prisk to visit our school and share what we have learned. After a school tour, he talked about gender equality to our year 4's who have been learning about this global goal last term. During an assembly the children then asked him about local and world issues. The questions were expertly asked and generated interesting answers. Lastly, he met our school council and discussed their role.

The Send My Friend to School campaign has been very successful and Mark said that the UK has now signed the declaration to support helping children to be able to go to school safely by 2030! Well done to everyone who made a difference through this important initiative! 

Global Art Trading Cards Exhibition (Australia)

Year 3 have sent their self-portraits to Perth, Australia to take part in a special exhibition with many other schools from around the world. When the exhibition is over, they will receive 21 'cards' from another school on the global learning project to see how they chose to represent themselves. They traced photos before using 'wacky' colours inspired by pop artist Andy Warhol to paint the self-portraits. They then designed contrasting black and white patterned backgrounds to help the portraits 'pop' out from the page. Year 3 worked really hard on their portraits and I think you will agree the results are stunning! Well done everyone!

What our children said: 

Zoey – I liked the crazy background. I think giving pictures to other children is a good thing to do. I feel excited that my pictures are going to be on display and it will be a special event.

Emily – I liked my picture and the way I did my hair. I look forward to seeing the pictures from the other school. I feel nervous that my pictures are going to be on display!

World Malaria Day 2018

We learned about the important issue of Malaria. All across the school, children were surprised to hear about this infection and how it spreads via the parasites found in mosquitoes. Mr Azzopardi led an assembly showing why mosquitoes are the world's most dangerous animal, where Malaria is found and what we can do to help prevent it. This linked in with Global Goal #3 -  Good Health. Children found out all about Malaria and linked it to lessons across the curriculum. In science, children tested different mosquito nets, in maths children made a graph based on Malaria infections and in computing, children used search engines safely to find out facts about malaria and make infographics.

What our children said:

Andrew – I liked learning about Malaria because now I know how many people are infected each year by mosquitoes.

Stanley – We tested some nets to see what was the best net for mosquitoes. This is important because it stops people catching malaria. I enjoyed learning about malaria but it was a bit gruesome.

Steven – The most interesting thing I found out was that mosquitoes kill more than people sharks. I also learned how mosquitoes can carry malaria and that you can’t catch it by touching another person.

Emma – I think it’s important that kids learn about malaria so that if they are travelling to a country with malaria they can avoid it by taking anti-mosquito spray and mosquito nets.

Gender Equality (UK and Pakistan)

Year 4 have been learning about gender equality. This is an important topic for our girls! On International Women's Day, we learned about many issues affecting the UK like the pay gap between men and women, how few women CEO's there are working for the top 100 companies and how few women there are in parliament compared to other countries. They were so determined to bring about change that they wrote to their local MP about these issues. Mr Prisk, MP for Hertford and Stortford is actually coming to visit us to talk about these issues because of our letters!

We also learned about gender equality around the world. We focused on the work by Malala Yousafzai for women's rights and education. We watched news reports about her and listened to her speeches on education. We then wrote journals from her point of view about the attack on her and all her work for women's rights which led to her winning the Nobel Peace Prize.

What our children said:

Hana – I enjoyed learning about gender equality. I was a little disappointed to find out that women were treated differently to men. I liked finding out interesting facts. It is important because women should be treated equality to men because we’re all the same really.

Charlotte – It was amazing to find out about Malala’s story and I think women should be treated equally to men. I like how she stood up for education in her country. It is important for girls to go to school all over the world.

Carmen – I’m really looking forward to meeting Mr Prisk and I like that he replied to our letters. I think that gender equality is really important. Malala’s story was really inspiring.

After our successful fundraising campaign in November for WE Walk for Water, 12 of our children were invited to WE Day at Wembley Arena!

It was an amazing event with tons of music and dance acts along with famous celebrities and even princesses! See the photos for a few familiar faces.

There were many inspirational speakers on the day who told us their stories about overcoming setbacks and their keys to success. This ranged from victims of bullying, abuse and prejudice, campaigning youtubers and refugees' stories, to young people who had set up charities, victims of Grenfell, and people with disabilities who had climbed mountains. The messages were very much to believe in yourself and know you can achieve anything you set out to do.

We learned about many campaigns that have taken place this year and the importance of the WE movement all around the world. Our learners were fantastically behaved, engaged and will remember this day for a long time to come!

Finally, one of our girls was invited for an in show highlight and shared in front of the 10,000 crowd our success story about our water walk. 

For those that missed the live stream, you can view the event in 2 parts if you search YouTube for 'we day wembley 2018'.

What our children said:

Millie - My favourite part was listening to the people's experiences and how they felt. I will always remember what Katie Piper said about having the acid attack. she inspired me not to give up on my dreams because set backs doesn't mean you can't accomplish them.

Eva - My favourite performer was Tokio Myers because he played lots of instruments. The speaker I will remember most was the boy that was in a young offenders home for 8 years and didn't give up. I also was inspired by Spencer West because he climbed a mountain without any legs.

Tiffany - I enjoyed Tokio Myers and Alexandra Burke's music the most. Lilly Collins inspired me because she said a setback could have ruined her career but she got back up and persevered. She was brave and didn't give up.

Harry - I enjoyed the Wheel of WE because they started throwing T-shirts into the crowd. The person talking about bullying inspired me because he was trying to stop bullying.

The Memory Project is a charitable nonprofit organization that invites art teachers and their students to create and donate portraits to youth around the world who have faced substantial challenges, such as violence, disasters, extreme poverty, neglect, and loss of parents.

Our children have created portraits of children in a Syrian Refugee camp to send and let them know we are thinking of them. We learned a lot about their crisis and what is happening in Syria currently.

What the project director said:

"We're so pleased to let you know that the portraits you created were delivered to the Syrian children, and it was a wonderful event. The children were so excited to receive your artwork and very touched by your efforts to create such special gifts. They live in stark conditions in the refugee camps, and to receive portraits made just for them was truly a unique experience for all.

Finally, please know that because of your financial contributions we were able to utilize $3,500 to support the aid organizations helping the children. That is a substantial amount of support for all of us to provide together, along with these very heartfelt portraits.

We’re so grateful for all of the extra time and effort you put into making this project possible. Together we are building a kinder world one portrait at a time and creating many cherished memories along the way. It is our true privilege to do this work with you, and we very much hope to have that privilege again."

On a visit to Israel and Palestine, Mr Azzopardi took hand puppets as a gift for the children of the Aida Refugee Camp. The camp is located near Bethlehem and has been in existence since 1948. The hand puppets were made by our Year 3 children who were interested to know about the conflict and why the refugees have been displaced there. Each hand puppet also contained a short letter from our children to the Palestinian children.

The children took part in their Walk for Water campaign on Water Wednesday! It was an incredible afternoon with a carnival atmosphere. Lots of other water activities were happening during the day and it was rounded off with the 1 mile walk for Kenyan villages.Altogether the children raised an incredible £694! WE Charity also visited us and we presented them with the cheque in assembly.

A few months later. 3 of our year 4 learners took part in a 'Dragon's Den' style presentation to 4 judges and wowed them with their knowledge and understanding of water as a global goal. They spoke confidently and clearly and won the top prize of £600 for the school!

What the event organiser said:

"The judges were very impressed with the children's poise and passion when presenting and they clearly had a firm grasp on why having access to clean water can make a huge difference in people's lives. They are a credit to your school and their reaction when they realised they'd won was delightful".

As part of our topic 'Similar people, different lives', year 4 have been learning about the Favelas in Rio de Janeiro. We have found out that they are quite different to what we expected and that they are fully operational cities within a bigger city, Rio. We made pastel landscape pictures of the wonderful views from the favela and posted them to a local guide to give out to children living there. On the back we wrote a message in Portuguese.