3 Layers of partnership

Partnership can be seen as being formed in layers. Partnership between individuals, groups of individuals or organisations initially requires a clear purpose and structure. The first layer is the initial partnering, which will include decisions about the purpose, the structure and the roles and responsibilities each element of the partnership will take on. As the partnership becomes more established deeper layers are created in the form of the relationships which will uphold and sustain that partnership. These layers create opportunities for learning within that partnership to be stimulated.

A key part of partnership as a pedagogy is creating learning spaces where learning in the partnership can take place. To be successful as a pedagogy, the purpose of the partnership must allow for a move from simply learning as individuals to putting that learning into action. The more the purpose of the partnership is to tackle complex problems or difficult issues (i.e. wicked problems) the more learners will be involved in pedagogies that develop their skills to work sustainably, allowing them to learn the skills, understanding and compassion that are vital for living and learning sustainably.

UNESCO (2023) sees global partnerships as a vital part of SDG 4 (Quality Education) and EDS. Therefore, creating learning spaces and communities that allow for external as well as internal partnering will be important in helping learners understand themselves as global citizens (Bennell, 2015). There can be much to consider in these networks and educators often describe partnership work as challenging. Where internal collaboration and networking are frequent, such that the knowledge, skills, and understanding of key players are shared, commitment to ESD can grow. In Audio 1 below, Sheila Bennell outlines what can work well, particularly in busy school environments, to build a global citizenship approach in partnership with both internal and external colleagues.

Download this audio clip.Audio player: Audio 1

Show transcript|Hide transcript

Transcript: Audio 1  Sheila Bennell on partnership and a global citizenship approach

Sheila Bennell

OK, so this is just a brief introduction to tell you about why I was actually doing the research in the first place. I had actually worked in the World Education Centre in Bangor University which worked with schools and colleges and things on education for sustainable development and global citizenship. I wanted to find out what the full picture, how do schools support each other? However, this was supported within the LA and basically they knew what to do and how they went about it, where they got their information from to address the SGC, for education for sustainable development and global citizenship.

On the LA level, there was lots of work going on with different advisers within the LA with one overall coordinator for the area and then all the other advisers who were working within that field, international advisers, healthy schools advisors, green schools advisors, they all work together. And between them, they used to run conferences and we had a North Wales ESGD forum, which included all the LA people, people like us in the World Education Centre and people from other organisations like the North Wales Wildlife Trust and Fair-Trade Association. We all came together every couple of months to actually discuss what could be done and what was going on so we all learned from each other.

So there were lots and lots of different groups supporting schools, but because they were all able to get together and talk to each other, they make quite a difference. They made them understand that ESD was involved in absolutely everything rather than just in their particular area of it. And within schools we found that the head teacher, obviously was quite an very, very important part. If the head teacher was on board, that made a big, big difference. If there was a strong ESD coordinator, sometimes the impact came from the person who became the coordinator first, who then influenced the head teacher. But generally, the schools where the head teacher was substantially involved from the start, that seemed to help.

Within the schools themselves where it was well organised, they used to hold regular weekly meetings and certainly strong monthly meetings where they could. All the teachers could share what they were doing, share the good practise. And there were also schools, within certain areas schools set up links with other schools and some in some cases it was mentoring. In some cases, you know, some schools mentoring other schools actually helped. In other schools it was more of a sharing thing where they come in and share all their ideas.

Some of the schools had international partnerships which became a really large part of their work and that's permeated through all the different areas in the school and all the different areas of the ESD. Yeah, some of them, some different schools, some of them would concentrate more on green schools or fair-trade schools, and if they didn't have an international partnership, they would be doing, you know, learning about other countries learning. Trying to help the children to appreciate that people were people all over the world.

But within the individual schools, they would have regular meetings when the teachers came together. The idea was to try and get all teachers to understand how the ESD permeated all their work. Then, once some schools had become more adept at it, then the ideas were working. I mean, there were local school groups anyway in an area, they would meet for other things as well, but they would meet to discuss what they've been doing within the ESD and explain their different methods. For example, one school had a link with Jamaica, and they used an enormous number of things to actually bring it all to life, Benjamin Zephaniah came into the school. They had people who had been over there and people from Jamaica came back over here. Other schools were working on other areas, other areas of the world and they would use local contacts that they knew you know. One school had a link with China, so they were using links with people in the community who were from China as well, so they were trying to bring in as many different aspects as they could. You know they were worked with North Wales Wild Trust on school gardening, wildlife gardening, all that sort of stuff, and then they would share it with other schools. I think the school partnerships were those groups that were quite important because in some ways, they helped each other and other ways they just enlightened them, you know, sort of helped each other, really. It was a too and fro, too and fro thing.

The pupils were, you know, they were saying things like. I've got a list of pupils’ sayings here. They were aware of the world, learning, respect and tolerances, differences, similarities, equality. Learning about people with different ideas, that they have a role to play in the world. The impact of their own actions. You know they would go home to their parents and tell them and say we've got to, we must start recycling or turning the lights off and that sort of thing. Empathy was one which is always a funny word, really relation to other people because it's quite difficult, I think, to have empathy. Sometimes you can have understanding and sympathy, but empathy is an interesting one, isn't it?

Local, global, you know, for example, when they were doing their gardening projects, they would also look at where other fruits came from, look at other countries, what were the issues in other countries where food came from, we would look at climate change, the future and what possibilities could be in the future. We did a lot of research from themselves, and the school councils were very influential, they had lots of ideas and they would instigate them in the school as well.

And making connections really. That was the other, other key thing that they could learn to make connections, that they weren't just alone in the world, that they were, the whole world was interconnected.

End transcript: Audio 1  Sheila Bennell on partnership and a global citizenship approach

Download

Audio 1  Sheila Bennell on partnership and a global citizenship approach