Learning In The Community Report: Reflections On Volunteering At Carlton South Public School

Purpose

This report includes my volunteering experience in the Carlton South Public School. It comprises school care for the students of age of 5-10. The activities involve playing with children, looking after them, making arrangement in the hall before children came; making everyone happy and friendly. This report also comprises the audience who were served during the placement. The report further describes the disadvantage observed and the needs of the clients to address during the placement. The community engagement theory is used in the daily practices of the volunteering services. Finally, the recommendations are given to improve community engagement in the daily practices.

The disadvantage which was faced during the placement was related to the timing, safety concern and curriculum. The disadvantage observed during the placement was that the teachers were given no training. The emphasis was given on the pre-literacy skills. The kids required addressing because of their behaviours such as crying, anger and frustration. It was necessary to address students ageing 5-10 years and their parents during the placement.

The ethical and social responsibility of volunteers included going beyond the law’s requirements in order to protect children and contribute to the social welfare. It was more like social obligation of a modern organization. The social responsibility was concerned with protecting interest of the children. The ethics and social responsibility plays important role in the good business practices. The schools facilitate training for the volunteers to learn ethics and social responsibility (Eriksen, 2018). It was believed that there was perceived insufficiency in the degree of the incorporation of ethics and social responsibility into various precise disciplines. The ethic described the good standard childcare practice which was used by us. We had privileged access to the kids and in a position to power over them; therefore we had ethical responsibilities for the welfare of the kids. The emphasis was made on the needs of the children and their families (Kelly, Reushle,Chakrabarty and Kinnane, 2014). It was our responsibility to provide settings to the children which are safe, healthy, cultivating and responsive for each child. We were liable to establish and maintain programmes which support children’s development and learning and help them to live, play and work cooperatively. It was made sure that the children’s needs were first priority in the administrative decision making. It was recognized that the wellbeing of the children cannot be separated from their family (Fisher, et. al, 2018). They were provided with a high quality program based on the knowledge of child development and best practices in the early care and education.

Volunteering Experience and Audience Served

I experienced that volunteering has offered incredible networking opportunities to me. It enabled me to meet new people comprising community leaders. It also helped to develop lifelong personal and professional relationships. The volunteering after school hours was equally helpful in retaining and sharpening skills (Roberts, Longhofer and Negro, 2015). As the duties change, a person was not able to do things as used to. In such a condition, volunteering was a perfect venue for sharpening those skills. Keeping in touch with the today’s students helped me to know their like, interest and concerns. It also helped in the counselling work to be aware of the current trends and interests of the students. Even I found that volunteering experience at school was a perfect place to develop new skills. Serving community helped in increasing facilitation skills. The supervising and training helped me to develop supervisory and training skills (Iskoujina and Roberts, 2015). It also offered unlimited opportunities to cultivate new skills and enhance career in this line only. I have gained valuable personal skills like patience and tolerance to enhance the professional standing. It also helped me to explore new career options and opportunities to learn about different perspectives.

The community engagement theory helped to examine the practice and possibility of community engagement in the afterhours school care. It examined how to support efforts in day care such that community engagement- a wide interrelated set of practices such as learning, participatory action, experiential education effective for its multiple communities (Piezunka and Dahlander, 2015). The community engagement was termed as public engagement which encompasses numerous methods for bringing people together to address issues of public importance. The community engagement aimed to improve quality of service in the afterhours school care. It was believed that the volunteers were trained in planning and the management of the school resources focuses on the tactics to looking after children, arrangements to set up the hall, tasks like playing with children, ensuring that kids are happy (Curtis, et. al, 2014). Such project supported the establishment of school committees where it did not exist and enabled the capacity of its members to monitor resources and spending of the school.

 I believed that community engagement theory focused on the parental engagement in the afterhour’s school care and the education of the children. This initiative of the community engagement theory supported engagement of the parents to make volunteers and teachers more accountable for the student’s security, education and health. Parents can visit the classrooms and can observe them with the help of live telecast and can discuss with the teachers. We have important role in engaging in creative awareness raising activities (Kaplan, 2017). The community engagement framework have important role in helping students, schools, parents and the community to work together in order to maximize learning and wellbeing of the students. It was helpful in delivering powerful outcomes from the students.

Disadvantages and Needs of the Clients

As per my opinion the successful schools engage with students, parents and the community as an important role in supporting student’s learning and wellbeing. Carlton South public school had already developed strategies to engage with parents along with the community. The overwhelming evidence can be attained from the parents’ engagement as it put positive effect on the student’s achievement (Farrell, 2015). The engagement has also strengthened the relationship between students, teachers, parents and the community. I have observed that there are five elements of the framework. The first one is communication; it is an exchange between students, parents, schools and communities. It comprised information sharing and opportunities to learn from each-other. The second element was partnership between parents, school and student to promote well-being, student learning and high expectations for the success of the students. The third was community collaboration which was a relationship between the school and wider community in order to strengthen the ability of schools and families to strengthen the student’s learning, well-being and outcomes. The decision making was also an important element of the community engagement framework. The parents, students and the community played important role in the decision making at school. Finally, the school culture reflected the respectful relationship between parents, students and the school community. It enhanced the promotion of learning and wellbeing of the students (Corbett, Cornelissen, Delios and Harley, 2014).

The volunteer is recommended to expand vision to include community. There are various opportunities available to the volunteers such as experiential learning. It happens out in the community surrounding the school. The ways should be find out to attract students. It is also recommended to connect with curriculum. The community engagement can be improved in the organization by using a range of strategies. I have observed that the quality of these relationships directly influences the quality of the learning. In the process of the community engagement, volunteers can continue to innovate, renew and strengthen approaches so that community engagement has positive effect on the wellbeing and achievement of the students. The school community partnerships assist to review and reflect efforts to improve teaching and learning. It seeks ways to enhance learning of the students and wellbeing by partnering with the parents and community organizations (Kerr, Stebbins, De Young, Stebbins and Rijnbout, 2016). The strategies are also helpful in addressing and identifying the student’s need. The nine domains can be used by the Carlton South public school to improve community engagement. These domains comprise systematic curriculum delivery, differentiated teaching and learning, expert volunteers to manage students, expert teaching team, effective pedagogical practices, culture that promotes learning and more.

Ethics and Social Responsibility of Volunteers

It is also recommended to promote two-way communication between parents and the school personnel in order to ensure that knowledge is used to notify practice. The volunteers should communicate with parents to provide information like where student stands and is up to in learning and the progress made over time. A caring relationship should be maintained so that students and parents can easily interact in both formal and informal settings. The volunteers and school can focus on the list of the parents which comprised expectations set by them for behaviour, attendance and the homework (Meier, Andersen, O’Toole Jr, Favero and Winter, 2015).

References

Corbett, A., Cornelissen, J., Delios, A. and Harley, B., 2014. Variety, novelty, and perceptions of scholarship in research on management and organizations: An appeal for ambidextrous scholarship. Journal of Management Studies, 51(1), pp.3-18

Curtis, A., Ross, H., Marshall, G.R., Baldwin, C., Cavaye, J., Freeman, C., Carr, A. and Syme, G.J., 2014. The great experiment with devolved NRM governance: lessons from community engagement in Australia and New Zealand since the 1980s. Australasian Journal of Environmental Management, 21(2), pp.175-199.

Eriksen, T.H., 2018. Scales of environmental engagement in an industrial town: glocal perspectives from Gladstone, Queensland. Ethnos, 83(3), pp.423-439.

Farrell, C.C., 2015. Designing school systems to encourage data use and instructional improvement: A comparison of school districts and charter management organizations. Educational Administration Quarterly, 51(3), pp.438-471.

Fisher, K., Smith, T., Brown, L., Wakely, L., Little, A., Wakely, K., Hudson, J. and Squires, K., 2018. Value-adding to health professional student placement experiences: Enhancing work readiness and employability through a rural community engagement program. Journal of Teaching and Learning for Graduate Employability, 9(1), pp.41-61.

Iskoujina, Z. and Roberts, J., 2015. Knowledge sharing in open source software communities: motivations and management. Journal of Knowledge Management, 19(4), pp.791-813.

Kaplan, A., 2017. European management and European business schools: Insights from the history of business schools. In Management Research (pp. 211-225). Routledge.

Kelly, N., Reushle, S., Chakrabarty, S. and Kinnane, A., 2014. Beginning teacher support in Australia: Towards an online community to augment current support. Australian Journal of Teacher Education, 39(4), pp.68-82.

Kerr, A., Stebbins, P., De Young, B., Stebbins, D. and Rijnbout, J., 2016. High performance schools case study: West key state school achievement and engagement. Australian Educational Leader, 38(2), p.23.

Meier, K., Andersen, S.C., O’Toole Jr, L.J., Favero, N. and Winter, S.C., 2015. Taking managerial context seriously: Public management and performance in US and Denmark schools. International Public Management Journal, 18(1), pp.130-150.

Piezunka, H. and Dahlander, L., 2015. Distant search, narrow attention: How crowding alters organizations’ filtering of suggestions in crowdsourcing. Academy of Management Journal, 58(3), pp.856-880.

Roberts, P.W., Longhofer, W. and Negro, G., 2015. Community Projects and the Mediating Role of Local Organizations. In Academy of Management Proceedings (Vol. 2015, No. 1, p. 15184). Briarcliff Manor, NY 10510: Academy of Management.