No school can educate a child for the 21st Century by acting as an island. It must build bridges that support engagement with the community and industry.
By establishing a framework you will be able to gradually grow the school as a hub of the community, engaging an eclectic range of stakeholders, all supporting the education of your students.
There are just 5 pillars required to build a framework that supports engagement and collaboration between school and the wider community.
Once this framework has been created it can be used often to build your school as a hub of community engagement.
The first thing to do when you start working with a potential partner is to determine the fundamental values that will underpin your work together.
This will seem strange but you need to establish your relationship with your potential partner and a slow engagement, achieved by discussing these values will help you to get to know each other, and it is a lot better than the “test and fail till you get it right” method.
Think of it as a prenuptial agreement!!
You don’t HAVE to agree on each of these principles. Pick the ones that suit your project. For small projects you may not need #5 but your school will gradually build a bank of standards that will underpin each following project.
These principles are suggested for consideration by schools and their partners when deciding how you are going to work together:
- The school and partners will share a common vision of the project and understanding of the scope.
- The project strategy will be customer centric, with the views of customers being represented in the project design.
- Participants will demonstrate through action, a willingness to make the project succeed.
- The project must be flexible enough to enable participation of all parties, regardless of power and status.
- Where standards are available they will guide the operation of the project.
- An analysis of all costs and benefits must underpin the project plan and sustain the ongoing case to work in partnership.
- Governance arrangements will explicitly identify who is available for what aspect of the project and to what standard.
- Security and privacy issues will underpin management.
- An express agreement between parties will support the project.
If you would like to discuss how to establish your school framework for engaging a village to raise your students email me: Bev.J@infocus-careers.com.au
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