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The Herald Scotland
16 hours ago
- General
- The Herald Scotland
Ken Muir Awards recognise ‘overlooked' student achievements
Powering Futures established the Ken Muir Awards as part of the culmination of its national Schools Programme. Delivered as a SCQF Level 6 certified course, the Schools Programme tasks students with solving a real-world challenge set for them by local business leaders. More than 1,000 pupils from 86 schools in Scotland participated in the Schools Programme in 2024-2025, the fourth year of the programme. Although every participant also leaves with a qualification, a spokesperson for Powering Futures said that the new Ken Muir Award is meant to give special attention to pupils who exhibited 'less measurable, but deeply meaningful outcomes,' such as increased confidence, teamwork skills, and planning for their lives after school. An award was given to one pupil from each participating school. Recipients were nominated by their teachers in recognition of individual growth during the challenge. Many calls for reforming the Scottish education system and independent studies into qualifications, exams and the curriculum have emphasised the need to move away from traditional results-based education and instead prioritise skills and other achievements that might translate directly into the workplace. Professor Louise Hayward's 2023 Independent Review of Qualifications and Assessment recommended significant changes to the exam diet and the creation of a new diploma reflecting wider student achievements. Prof Muir's 2022 report, Putting Learners at the Centre, focussed on reforms to the qualifications system as part of a broader cultural shift in education that gave less weight to high-stakes exams and more focus on student and teacher voices. Read more Prof Muir said that the new award in his name and the Powering Futures Schools Programme are both 'symbolic' of the change he wants to see in Scottish education. 'We need a culture shift in Scotland's education system. Of course, grades are important - but so is working hard, reflecting on progress, and growing as a person. 'These Awards are symbolic of this shift. They celebrate personal development, resilience, communication, and teamwork. These are all critical attributes that help young people thrive in life and in work.' He added that giving students, teachers, and employers input into the system is critical. 'Innovation in education doesn't come from the top down. It comes from those on the ground who genuinely want to see young people achieve in every sense of the word. Powering Futures is one such innovation, and it's helping us reimagine what success looks like in Scottish schools.' Professor Ken Muir presents Rubin Allen from Alva Academy with his Powering Futures Challenge SCQF Level 6 Qualification Certificate. (Image: © Stuart Nicol Photography 2025.) Over the course of the Schools Programme, students have the chance to work directly with the business leaders who set the challenges and build relationships, which Powering Futures co-founder Jennifer Tempany said provide opportunities for students when they leave school. 'The Powering Futures Schools Programme is equipping the next generation with the skills and mindset to thrive in the jobs of the future. 'These Awards highlight the often-overlooked achievements that sit beyond academic results, but which can inspire confidence and purpose in young people as they go into the world of work. 'We are proud to play our part in helping young people see their potential, and congratulate every recipient for their well-earned achievement.' The inaugural Ken Muir Awards were hosted by SSEN Transmission in Perth. Nicky Gadsden, SSEN's Early Career Attraction and Engagement Lead, said the awards 'help signal a brighter, more sustainable future powered by their vision and ambition.' 'We're thrilled to celebrate the recipients of this year's Ken Muir Award - young people whose drive and innovation are already setting them up to make waves in their future careers, wherever it takes them.'
The Herald Scotland
27-04-2025
- General
- The Herald Scotland
Banff to Bethlehem project produces international artwork
Across the country, and indeed the planet, schools are asking themselves how to respond to, and help their students grow up in, a world in which the pace of change – much of it negative – only seems to be accelerating. What do young people need to know? What skills must we help them develop? How do we ensure that education is relevant to their experiences? In an attempt to answer those questions, one school in Aberdeenshire has launched a radical experiment, redesigning the weekly timetable for students in S1, S2 and S3 to include dedicated time for interdisciplinary, project-based learning (PBL). At its most effective, this approach engages students by allowing them to explore real-world issues and problems, all within a framework that blends contributions from a number of individual subject areas. A range of organisations already offer PBL courses and qualifications through programmes like F1 in Schools, Powering Futures and the International Sustainability Diploma, but individual schools can, and do, establish their own projects as well. Indeed, Scotland's curriculum encourages it. At Banff Academy they have gone further, creating the post of Principal Teacher of Project Based Learning that is currently filled by Stewart Clelland. Supported by headteacher Alan Horberry and Business and Community Support Officer Lucy Hogan, and thanks to funding from the Wood Foundation's Excelerate programme, he has led a curricular rethink that now sees students in the first years of secondary school spend whole days every week working outwith 'subject silos' and instead turning their attention to interdisciplinary projects. One of their most recent, and most successful, is titled 'Banff to Bethlehem' and has developed into a real-time international collaboration and exhibition linking students in Scotland with peers thousands of miles away in occupied Palestine. According to Clelland, the seeds of the project were in fact planted during a Global Learning Partnership placement in Rwanda and Uganda, an experience he says had a 'profound and lasting impact' on him and sparked a great interest in ideas of 'global citizenship, equity, and creative collaboration.' Read more: But Banff to Bethlehem, he explains, came together thanks to a chance encounter on social media. 'Basically the story is that we wanted to come up with something on sustainability. 'For whatever reason our other projects hadn't really focused specifically on art, and I really wanted the kids to be able to have experience of working with a professional artist on something to do with recycling and regeneration. 'We're also really interested in a local community and how we can regenerate our local high street. The challenges that we face through sustainability, or through climate change - what other things are stopping our community being sustainable? 'But I didn't want to make it myopic. I kind of wanted it to be looking out the way, and I was interested in trying to get an international partnership. 'I was on Twitter and saw a bakery in Inverness that had done an exhibition that had some Palestinian photographs up, and I asked them where did they get their artist from and they directed me towards an organization called the Network of Palestinian Photographers. 'So I contacted them and said that I'm a teacher, we're doing this project on sustainable communities, and I would really like the kids to be talking to somebody in a situation who's facing an existential crisis - a real attack on their community or culture - to help us think about how that might reflect on some of the challenges that we are facing up here in the North East.' A piece of artwork produced by a Banff Academy student as part of their recent project (Image: Banff Academy) Having been provided with a shortlist of Palestinian artists who might be interested in teaming up, Clelland was soon in touch with Taqi Spateen, a painter and muralist from the West Bank. They built a relationship through video calls during which they discussed the logistics of the plans. 'We decided that we could get him to tune into the classroom by Teams and hold one-to-one sessions with the kids, so they could develop a piece of art work that was informed by expert advice and had constant feedback from a professional.' Banff Academy's PBL programmes begin with an 'entry event' designed to pique students' interest in the new topic. In this case, that involved dumping a week's worth of plastic recycling from around the school on the floor of the assembly hall. The size of the pile shocked many, and from here they were guided into conversations about sustainability, creativity and community. The next step involved in-class sessions led by teachers with support from community partners including a local arts collective called The Forge. This collaboration, Clelland says, was key to engaging students while also supporting them to produce the most ambitious, expressive work possible. Students in Palestine producing artworks as part of the Banff to Bethlehem project (Image: Taqi Spateen) Remarkably, the project was carried out simultaneously with students attending the Hussan Secondary School for Boys in Bethlehem, forming a connection that also helped to illustrate the starkly different realities in Scotland and Palestine. Ultimately students were being asked to produce artwork that 'repurposed the past' by incorporating discarded materials in order to tell stories about sustainability and community. In Banff, that meant plastic bottles and newspaper clippings being used to explore climate change, renewables, and sport; in Bethlehem, some of the students used spent bullet casings in their work, and olive groves were a recurring feature. The project didn't end there. Rather than file the artworks away on a shelf, they have instead been placed on display in various locations around Banff including The Smiddy, which is – appropriately – a repurposed blacksmith's shop that had previously lain abandoned for decades. Several shops along the town's main street are also involved, displaying the artworks in their front windows. Even more impressively, their partnership with Taqi means that copies of Scottish students' art has also been placed on display on the Israeli separation wall, and the whole project has been heralded by the Bethlehem Cultural Festival. If the idea is to take learning out of the classroom and into the real world, then that has clearly been achieved. 'I never thought my art could travel so far or mean so much,' said one of the students involved. 'Seeing it on the Wall in Bethlehem felt like being part of something bigger.'
