School: William Clark College (NSW)
Partner: Glenhaven Green (retirement village) and numerous others

William Clarke College is an independent, coeducational Christian school located in Kellyville with nearly 1,400 students from Kindergarten to Year 12. The school has a strong commitment to service learning and has a dedicated program which allows students to learn about paid and unpaid service providers, work on a project that benefits the wider community, learn new skills and develop attitudes they would not necessarily gain from their mainstream classes.

The school initiated its Impact award winning program in 2006 following international research by the Headmaster on the benefits of service learning, which was seen as a way of fostering traits such as civic responsibility, self esteem and consideration for others. It was also seen as a way of engaging students in academic learning and developing organisational and communication skills.

The program involves establishing partnerships with organisations that could directly benefit from the students’ involvement in these service learning activities.

The school’s service learning program has been carefully structured and integrated into the Middle School program. The program has three main parts:

• Student learning about community service groups, who they are and what they do
• Active, ongoing involvement and experience in serving at a community facility
• Practical, student initiated programs of assistance to community groups, which are devised by student teams with guidance from the teachers

A range of learning outcomes derives from each of these parts. The students also complete journals which record their experiences and provide a basis for reflection.

Two periods per week for a semester are provided in the school time table for the Service Learning Program. Documentation includes staff programs that outline roles, responsibilities and reporting outcomes; lesson plans and resources; student worksheets; and student journals. In consultation with its partners the school prepares risk assessments, a program budget, a service learning management and reporting structure and seeks feedback from the partners on a regular basis regarding the effectiveness of the program.

Some of the partnerships have included:

• Retirement villages and aged care services
• Special needs schools
• Rural bush fire brigade
• Careflight
• Guide dogs
• RSPCA
• Community based special projects, including the construction of a skateboard park

The types of projects that have resulted from these partnerships include knitted blankets for the RSPCA and the homeless, recorded oral histories in book form for the aged, the creation of a herb garden and the production of hanging mobiles as classroom decorations for a special needs school. All of these activities were of benefit to the community and have also involved the development of a range of skills by the students.

According to one student who visited Glenhaven Green, a local retirement village, stated ‘the program helped me explore a part of my world I would have never explored. I truly felt it was a once in a lifetime opportunity’. The skateboard project is an excellent example of what has been achieved through this program. A group of boys surveyed the student body to find out what leisure activity they wanted in the area, decided upon an appropriate location, learnt how to measure it out and the fit the appropriate jumps, sought information from landscapers and local council and reported verbally and in writing to council.

The benefits to students have been clear from their reflective journals and from their enthusiasm in speaking about the program to other students. Students have appreciated the new skills they have learnt and the understanding they have gained of the community and of themselves. One Service Learning teacher wrote a letter to the Headmaster after attending a partner organisation with her class and wrote:

“Just letting you know that I feel so privileged to be witnessing something so special. My group were absolutely amazing today. We talked before we went about the disabilities and behaviours that may be witnessed and discussed looking beyond the disability to the person inside. Each of our students completely immersed themselves in connecting with these other children and many staff made comments that they could not believe how caring, gentle and helpful they were.”

The school is strongly committed to the program and promotes it at presentation nights, in school bulletins and on the school website. The Impact Award money will be used to fund an environmental care program and further professional development for staff on service learning more generally.