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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Western Australia’s capacity to educate students to succeed in a 21st Century Global Village is being crippled by insurance companies regimes. Duty of care has become the overarching education framework that determines students stay on school grounds and risks are averted.
Teachers’ capacity to engage with any village to enhance the education of students is stifled by a mountain of risk management paperwork.
Schools are becoming islands in a global environment.
Framework Required
Education providers need to create a framework that enable students to engage in entreprise and work integrated learning activities.
There are just 5 elements to the framework. Once it has been developed it can be used as a template for any collaborative arrangement between schools and the world outside school.
Governance
Clarify who is responsible for what and to what standard?
Legal
There will be rules that govern the way any collaboration will operate? Duty of care, privacy, equal opportunity and ownership of intellectual property are just some.
Once you have identified a list that your school must comply with you can use it for all projects.
Finance
You need a dedicated budget. Serious efforts to collaborate should not attempt to squeeze more into existing tight budgets.
Business Rules
A good project plan should underpin the project. Project planning templates for all occasions can be found HERE. The project plan will lead to a sound MoU that can act as a template for further collaborations.
IT
Your school will have IT protocols, security frameworks and applications that apply to all IT activity. These issues need to be reconciled with partnering organisations to ensure seamless interoperability.
NSIF Meta Framework
The National Service Improvement Framework is a framework to use to design frameworks.
It is a top down model which starts with organisations agreeing on what they want to do and what benefits they are trying to achieve.
VET in Schools Example
The regime that enables VET in schools has been created to support collaboration between education and training providers.
That framework can provide an example of what to do, and also what NOT to do.
For More Information
For a free consultation about how to develop a framework for collaboration for your organisation contact me at Bev.J@infocus-careers.com.au
The In Focus Careers Newsletter is a monthly conduit of career information for West Australian teachers and families. If you would like to know what is going on in a world of career opportunities ask for a complementary copy.
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.
