Global Goals - An Authentic context for Action at Nexus

Last month, leaders from 193 countries around the world met at the United Nations' Headquarters in New York. There the leaders committed their countries and their peoples to 17 Global Goals for sustainable development. These targets will build on the achievements against the very ambitious Millennium Goals set by these countries in 2000 and be a global focus for the next 15 years.

At Nexus, all the children across the Primary School were joined by learners from Year 10 to mark this very important occasion by planning action that they will take themselves towards these ambitious goals. Each vertical group had learners from a range of year groups and Year 10 learners to help to facilitate the inquiry process. The children have chosen a global goal to focus on and brainstormed action they may take. The nature of the Global Goals is such that learner inquiry and subsequent action can be directly driven through the PYP Transdisciplinary Themes, or Independent inquiry time.

The Global Goals have presented our learners with a globally authentic context for inquiry. As a school we see the Global goals being key to showcasing and developing the Essential Elements at Nexus. Highlights so far have been:

• Our learners collaborating in vertical groups.
• The authentic nature of the Global Goals and media attention have made it a hugely resource rich context for inquiry.
• The Global Goals provide authentic opportunities for action, and exploring different types of action.
• Our learners were given complete autonomy when deciding their own focus goals. Teachers were present as guides on the side. At Nexus we have been focussing on building strong learner focussed relationships in the learning environment (Absolum). An important element to building the relationships is releasing the control and developing learner agency (decision making power)
• The global goals allow our learners to develop more sophisticated questioning skills. In particular, their ability to develop strong conceptual questions and look at the issue through different lenses. The Global Goals have been perfect for learners sharing Perspective.
• As our learners continue to inquire into their chosen goal, there will be many opportunities for them to develop and use their Approaches to Learning and Attitudes. At the end of each meeting, learners are supported to reflect on the skills and dispositions that supported learning.

Our learning groups will continue to meet throughout the year to plan, take action and reflect.

Please take some time to view and comment on our blog and share the link with friends and family around the world. The link is    http://www.nexuspypaction.blogspot.sg/

Justin Potter

PYP Coordinator

Nexus International School, Singapore