‘Relationships between the school and the wider community strengthen the ability of schools and families to support student learning, wellbeing and developmental outcomes.’ Community Collaboration Domain from ‘Engaging and Working with Your Community Framework’ DoE WA
At City Beach Primary School we use a range of strategies to successfully engage with local community groups to support our kids in their learning. Our extensive volunteer program relies on the generosity of community members who volunteer their time through community groups, and individually each week. We have EdConnect and Rotary volunteers, and students studying teaching, who work with classes across the school in different areas to enrich their learning experiences. Together this incredibly dedicated team of volunteers support our kids across a huge range of areas across the week: literacy, numeracy, visual arts technical skills, social and emotional learning the list is endless.
Over the next few issues of the newsletter we would like you to meet our volunteers and learn little about what they do, and how your children feel about their opportunity to engage with them.
This issue we feature Hugh Currie from EdConnect Australia, a non-for profit group who train and place volunteers in local schools to support students. Hugh works with our Year 3, 4, 5 and 6 students once or twice a week in the area of mathematics. In hugh’s own words:
“In the last couple of years I have had the privilege of collaborating with the passionate teachers at CBPS to develop a maths enrichment program. Where possible we try to connect the mathematics curriculum to games and real world applications. Through these, we aim to increase the relevance, energy levels and enjoyment of maths as a core subject. Students are regularly encouraged to share the lead and explain problems to other students. This can be thrilling to see when a classroom is humming and having fun. I feel the program is still in its early days and there are many opportunities to develop it further. Having engaged with a number of schools during the last 20 years of my two children’s education, it is clear that CBPS is a very special community to be involved with”.
Here’s what some of the students who have the chance to work with Hugh each week have had to say about him (thanks Stella Tejas and Creed):
‘We love the games he creates for us…’
‘He makes maths make sense and uses a random generator to make sure everyone gets a go…’
‘I like how he’s different to other teachers, he helps us learn maths in a fun and exciting way…’
‘It’s always different every week which is more of a reason to look forward to it…’
As you can see Hugh together with our teachers work hard to make mathematics real and meaningful by encouraging our kids to develop and extend their mathematical knowledge to solve real life problems…and have fun doing it!
Keep an eye out for our volunteer feature in the next few newsletter issues – how lucky are our kids to have the chance to work with talented and dedicated volunteers who share the passion and expertise with them at school? We never stop learning.