As Part of the Community
Trish Taylor, principal of St Joseph's Collingwood, is no stranger to involving the school in partnerships. The Schools as Core Social Centres (SACSC) project began in 2002 with a cluster of three inner-Melbourne schools; St Joseph's School Collingwood, Sacred Heart School Fitzroy and St Brigid's School North Fitzroy. "The SACCS project emerged out of an OECD study Schooling for Tomorrow which presented a scenario of the school as a community centre out of which a number of social needs could be met. The school then becomes a place where families, the school and the community interact in a way which is almost seamless."
"When we began the project we already had many strategies in place to promote student wellbeing. With so many things going on in students' lives it's important to consider the social and emotional health of students to get them ready to learn in a sustainable and meaningful way. Some students would come to school in the morning who had come from home where everything was in chaos, and it might be 10:30 before they had settled enough to be engaged with what was happening in the classroom."
The school conducted an audit of what was already being done in the school to promote student wellbeing as well as exploring ways of strengthening this. "One of the areas we identified very early on was parent participation in the school. We were concerned that we weren't reaching enough parents. We asked ourselves what it was about the school that stopped parents from coming. What was it that we weren't doing or offering to make them come or want to come to the school? We needed to develop a more welcoming school to give our families a sense of belonging. We offered a range of activities to break down preconceived barriers to parent involvement in the school. This ranged from such non-threatening activities as morning teas, barbecues and making library bags right up to participation in parent forums where we were seeking parent involvement on a deeper level."
"We originally set a target of involving every parent with at least two activities each year but we have now increased that to three activities as we felt we were reaching our original target quite easily with the range of activities being offered. We've recently taken this further by asking parents what they would like to do. We've done this through focus groups and through extensive telephone surveys and through these we've identified a number of initiatives that parents want to be involved in including access to computer skills classes and parenting skills."
By knowing the needs of the parents as well as what is available in the local community the school is able to connect families with agencies and services for a range of situations. "The key is knowing your community and knowing what's available. Knowing the links and agencies in our local community means we know how we can put parents in contact with groups that can help with particular issues."
Another area that was identified was supporting students and families in the transition between primary and secondary school. "With support from SFYS funding the three primary schools in the cluster formed a relationship with three Catholic secondary schools. We've held information sessions targeting parents of students in Years 5 to 8 on issues related to adolescence including drug abuse, body image and mental health. The secondary schools are also running days for the students from the primary schools in arts, science and sport with the aim of easing the transition from primary to secondary school. If the transition from primary to secondary is smoother there's a greater chance the students will stay at school. We've also been involved with a transition cluster at the Collingwood Town Hall which promoted school, pre-school and childcare options to families."
Providing opportunities for students to participate in sport away from the school was another benefit of the SACSC cluster. "We've worked with the SFYS for several years now and we embarked on a program linking students with local sports clubs with the support of the City of Yarra. We were involved in a big sports expo which a number of clubs from the area attended. A information session was followed by a day of skills clinics activities including lawn bowls, cricket and basketball so the students could become engaged in playing the sports with the people from those clubs. We're all small schools and it would be difficult for us individually to take on something like this, but the City of Yarra contacted the clubs, organised the facilities and organised a barbecue. We then had a number of kids who went on to join sports clubs and we were able to supplement some of the joining costs. We also used this involvement in sport to further strengthen the relationship with the other schools in the cluster through interschool sport competitions."
Partnerships at the school aren't limited to relationships with the other schools in the cluster and community organisations. "Australian Red Cross introduced a breakfast program into the school and (accounting firm) KPMG have continued the program by sending three volunteers each morning to serve breakfast to the students. KPMG have also provided the school with a number of computers and two 'conversation cubbies' for our new oral language development program. We started the relationship through breakfast, and I go to breakfast most days. I see great value in nurturing partnerships. Once you get a partnership going you really need to be taking with the people involved to make sure the partnership flourishes.
St Joseph's is a school with a small student population, but the partnerships it has developed through the SACSC project and beyond ensure that it is catering to the wellbeing needs of the students at the school as well as their families and the wider community. "There are so many needs in schools that schools alone can't meet, and that's why it's important to develop relationships with the community. Our students don't miss out on a thing, they get so much support and education from outside the school. The key is knowing your community, what's available and working with the community as part of the community."
