PUPILS at Kirn Primary School have been putting sustainability at the heart of their learning this term, transforming recycled materials into impressive fashion pieces as part of an ambitious cross-curricular project.
Their efforts culminated last Thursday in a lively Sustainable Fashion Show. Staff at the school have kindly submitted the following report.
This term the pupils from P6/5 and Primary 6 have been focusing upon Learning for Sustainability, which is a cross-cutting curricular approach that enables pupils to consider how they can support and build a socially just, sustainable and equitable society.
We began by examining what is meant by sustainable consumption and learnt about the need for reducing our waste through recycling, repairing and reusing goods. The children decided that they wanted to apply the principles of sustainable consumption by reusing materials to make new items.
Primary 6/5 brought in old T-shirts and turned these into bags they can use to carry their PE kits. Primary 6 turned old builder sacks into bags that they covered with donated material — these can be used for shopping. All the pupils got to design and then create their bags using a sewing machine, hand stitching and hot glue guns.
We were very proud of the bags we had made and decided to host a Sustainable Fashion Show to showcase our bags with the wider school community and our parents/carers. As we weren’t busy enough, we also decided to make items which we could sell at the show.
Primary 6 recycled sea glass into beautiful pendants and Primary 6/5 made gonks and snowmen out of recycled wooden pallets.
On Thursday, December 4, the school community were excited to come and watch the P6/5 and P6 Sustainable Fashion Show in the school hall. The pupils’ hard work was well received and appreciated by the audience.
Children were joined by S4 and S5 pupils from Dunoon Grammar School who are completing their Skills for Work qualifications in Hair and Beauty with Argyll College. The children were very excited to have their hair and make-up done for the show. The Skills for Work students had also made a range of hair accessories from recycled sweetie packets and material for the children to wear and sell.
We would like to thank local businesses and families that donated items for us to use as part of our project. Kirn-based business Jinty and Baa donated ribbon and buttons, while Stewart Shaw donated old builder sacks and pallets. The Kerr family donated fabric, buttons and ribbons, while Mrs Wilson’s husband turned the pallets into gonks and snowmen for the children to assemble and decorate.
Through involvement in the IDL, pupils have developed their capacities to be responsible citizens through understanding what sustainability means; effective contributors through being involved in producing fashion items and enterprise goods; and confident individuals through running the enterprise and hosting the fashion show.
A huge thank you to everyone who came along and supported the event. The pupils have made almost 350 and their class teachers, Mrs Wilson and Miss Melville, are very proud of all their hard work and effort.
