Sustainable Development Education in Secondary Schools – the Eco-Schools Route towards a Greener Scotland.

Eco-Schools is an international award programme supporting Sustainable Development Education.

Schools achieve bronze and silver awards based on self-assessment but the ultimate prestigious “Green Flag” award is only given following an assessment visit by trained assessors. Nearly 600 schools in Scotland proudly fly one or more Green Flags - but only about 30 of these are mainstream secondaries!

The Scottish Government provided funding to develop Eco-Schools into a programme more appropriate for the secondary sector. This seminar will address the barriers secondary schools face and outline new proposals to encourage participation.

Eco-Schools is essentially cross curricular and is superbly placed to support the objectives of Curriculum for Excellence. By its very nature the programme is participative and strongly supports many of HMIe's Dimensions of Excellence – particularl Dimension 8 - Valuing and Empowering Staff and Young People.

The delivery of SDE is an essential element in CfE and the Eco-Schools programme provides a structure and incentive through which SDE can be delivered. The secondary programme also promotes a number of opportunities for the accreditation of wider learning.

Delegates will encounter the ‘seven elements’ of Eco-Schools which remain at the heart of the programme and form the core of the assessment process, and the four areas where evidence can be found within the secondary sector - curricular analysis, accreditation, action for sustainable living, and careers education,

Paul Cortopassi is Secondary Schools Development Officer for the Eco-Schools Scotland.

His key role is to encourage more secondary school involvement by developing the programme to overcome the barriers faced by secondary schools and make it more appropriate for older pupils.

As PT geography for 28 years he served his time through numerous changes – RoSLA (if you remember that….), various ‘alternative’ O and H Grades, Standard Grade revisions, Higher Still etc and was involved in the development of many elements of these courses.

He was appointed ‘Education Development Officer’ for East Dunbartonshire Council in 1996 with a varied remit but with a focus on ‘Education for Work’ (including managing the Work Experience programme for East and West Dunbartonshire Councils) and latterly ‘Determined to Succeed’ where a major success was opening the new hi-tech ‘Enterprising Teaching and Learning Centre’ in Twechar.

He recently retired as QIO for East Dunbartonshire Council and took up his current SSDO post in November 2006.