UNESCO ASPnet Schools Coventry

This week our CEO Ann and Jude (SSF Ambassador) visited schools in Coventry and heard about the wonderful work that students are doing to foster peace and community connection, as part of Coventry Arts Week.


We visited Lyng Hall school in the morning and met with Ms Hagan and four of the schools UNESCO ASPnet ambassadors.


They told us all about their recent project. The students took their art and poetry to the 80th Anniversary symposium in Ypres and Dunkirk.


They shared with us some of the poetry they had written together with the students on the field trip and some of their own poems too. They also shared their future plans for working with their local primary school on peace and community.


We also had the privilege of joining Ms Hagans class where they were looking at Caliban’s tale. Here is one of the students work


At lunchtime, we met Rebecca Bollands, Headteacher at Earlsdon primary and she took us to their community allotment and orchard garden. We were impressed by how organised the garden is and the wonderful way that parents and the community take part in growing the food from seed, harvesting the crops and sharing the produce. The students find out about the science of seeds and sustainable food growth as well enjoying the fruits of their labour.




We then went to visit the Herbert Gallery where we were shown around an inspirational display of children’s work.


From Scribbles to Masterpieces


An exhibition of Coventry schools' artwork, exploring the stages of children's art development.



In 1947, Dr Viktor Lowenfeld published his famous text, Creative and Mental Growth, which argues that there are six clearly defined stages of artistic development and that these stages can be witnessed in the artworks of children. It is a universal theory about how children, on average, grow and develop in art. Children all over the world, regardless of race, socioeconomic factors and culture go through these stages, although these can be fluid and dynamic and children may proceed at different rates.


In this exhibition the curators group artwork made by the children of Coventry made in response to the theme of Community, into the six stages of artistic development to understand and illustrate the different stages and understand children's art development.


The exhibition runs to 31st August so do go and see it if you can



In the evening. We attended MUSIC Coventry Music Trust would like to invite you to a reception before the Coventry Music Summer Showcase taking place at the Butterworth Hall, Warwick Arts Centre June 24th 2025 as part of the inaugural Coventry Schools Arts Week 2025. This will be a fantastic night featuring a number of Coventry Music groups, members of Warwick University Orchestra and a massed choir of 300 children from across the city.



Coventry is unique as a city in the UK as it works to ensure that all Coventry schools have the opportunity to become part of the ASPnet programme and they are encouraging all schools in the city to join, it is free and it connects schools across 182 countries.


If you are interested in joining you can find out more here:   https://www.unesco.org/en/aspnet


If you have any questions Ann Beatty (CEO of the Steve Sinnott Foundation) is the ASPnet Co-ordinator for the UK programme and you can email her ann.beatty@stevesinnottfoundation.org.uk to find out more.


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Ann Beatty • July 8, 2025

In Harmony With Peace Concert

By Ann Beatty • June 1, 2026
On Friday evening ( 29 May, 7.00 pm The Actors Church Covent Garden) we had the pleasure of listening to this very special concert, bringing together the Choir of King's College London and the Princeton High School Orchestra in a celebration of international friendship, collaboration, and shared values. This project reflects a commitment to peace, sustainability, equality, and cultural exchange, uniting young musicians from the United Kingdom and the United States through the universal language of music.

36 Bicycles. Countless Futures in The Gambia.

By Ann Beatty • May 20, 2026
How a simple act of practical solidarity is transforming the journey to school in The Gambia’s Central River Region North Policies have been written. Schools have been built. Yet for many children in The Gambia’s Central River Region North, access to education is still measured in kilometres, not opportunity. 

Education for Hope in Volatile, Uncertain, Complex and Ambiguous Times

By Laura Griffin • May 13, 2026
‘In a single hour vast tracts of shaded woodland became a jumble of torn trees and upturned soil, exposed to the glare of the summer sun. Such land-clearing events are rare, but forests exhibit remarkable resilience in the face of disaster. I’m told that the Chinese character for ‘catastrophe’ is the same as that which represents the word ‘opportunity’. And, the blowdown, while catastrophic, presented opportunities for many species.’ (Wall Kimmerer, 2003: 89). In the context of a volatile, uncertain, complex, and ambiguous world (Stein, 2021) what kinds of education for hope might support children’s and young people’s critical engagement in local and global issues? In the spirit of exploring the possibilities of hope further, this short article focuses on the area of global citizenship and sustainabilityrelated education. It will briefly open by sharing commonalities across pedagogical approaches that take up the concept and act of hope more critically, and close by offering reflective questions for educators, with suggestions for further reading. Perhaps it is a kind of hope that is grounded in the present, in future reimagining(s), in ethical solidarity, and an acknowledgement of our deep entanglement with the living metabolism of planet earth 1 our singular home (UNESCO, 2021); a hope that engages with complex root causes and lived realities of multiple overlapping crises in critically reflexive and contextually relevant ways. As McCloskey notes, ‘Hope can fire our collective imagination and critical consciousness as a mainspring to activism and intervention in the world.’ (2025: 3). Commonalities across critical pedagogical approaches to hope include: Acknowledging the context of a ‘seamless single story of progress, development and human evolution’ (Andreotti, V.D.O., 2021b Relating to social and ecological justice and the wellbeing of people and planet Using participatory, action-orientated and inquiry-based learning processes Exploring diverse worldviews and perspectives Practising grounding in the present with opening up possibilities for change (relational, embodied, response-able 2 ) Experiencing ‘struggle’ in different forms (dialogical, selfreflexive, open-ended) Engaging individual and collective agency, action and activism Looking for lifelong and life-wide learning and unlearning. 1 See ‘Co-sensing with Radical Tenderness’, in Machado de Oliveira Andreotti. 2021a 2 See ‘Crossing Borders’ in 2 Depth Education “Depth Education and the Possibility of GCE Otherwise, 2021b. Source: Andreotti, V. 2021a & 2021b., Atif, A. (2025)., Bourn, D. 2021., Bryan. A. and Mochizuki,Y., 2024., Giroux, H.A. 2025., Meade, E. 2025. Whilst engaging in the concept and act of hope more critically reflect upon: What kinds of education for hope might you explore further and why? How might you provide generative spaces for engaging in diverse worldviews and perspectives? In what ways can you facilitate individual and collective agency? How might you support learners’ practice grounding in the present in order to relate differently? In what ways can you support learners in navigating complex root causes and lived realities of local and global issues? As Chief Ninawa Hini Kui affirms, ‘The future depends much less on the images we project ahead than on our capacity to repair relations and build relationships differently in the present.’ (Andreotti et al, 2023: 73. An invitation for further reading: Transformative Learning for a Sustainable Future . d’Abreu, C., Belgeonne, C., Bourn, D. and Hatley, J. (2025) ‘Transformative Learning for a Sustainable Future’. DERC Research Paper 24. London: UCL Institute of Education. Hospicing Modernity: facing humanity’s wrongs and the implications for social activism. Machado de Oliveira Andreotti, V. (2021a) ‘Hospicing Modernity: facing humanity’s wrongs and the implications for social activism’ , London: Penguin Random House. Development Education and Hope . McCloskey, S. (2025). (ed) ‘Development Education and Hope’. ‘Policy and Practice: A Development Education Review’ , Vol. 41, Autumn. Centre for Global Education, Belfast. Link to and download the full reference list here