Partnerships between School and Community

Interview with the Principal

Question: what is the school’s vision and mission or goals of partnership between the school and the local community (trips)?

Answer: the main goal of partnering with the local community is to enhance the learning experience of the students. To teach them that learning goes way beyond the confines of the classroom.

Question: How does the school select the local community?

Answer: The school does not just decide on the local community to partner with. The decision is based on the greatest potential to support the learning process. For example, by choosing to visit a zoo, the children will be able to learn more about animals, beyond what they have been taught or read from their books. The same applies to the decision to take them to a museum where the children learn about the history and culture of the local community. Hence, the list of partners takes a great deal of considerations.

Question: Do teachers have a chance to select them, or they are given the list of those communities?

Answer: The teachers are important stakeholders in the decision. They are the instructors and have adequate understanding of what the children should be taught. Hence, to get the best out of the partnerships, the teachers’ opinions are highly appreciated.

Question: Based on what they are arranged, is it to match the curriculum standards or match the international events?

Answer: while the international events matter in the decision, the curriculum is mainly the determining factor for those trips out of the school. For example, if there is an international art exhibition in the local community, the choice of the class to attend will be determined by the curriculum.

Question: Are the students prepared for the visit? How?

Answer: the students are always prepared for the visits. It is usually a part of the syllabus they are covering. Therefore, as part of the teaching process, they are informed of the visits that they will make in line with whatever they are learning. The same information is communicated to the teachers.

Question: What is the parents’ role?

Answer: The parents support the school by paying for the trips. They also provide the snacks for the students to eat while on the trip.

Question: What do students do after the trip?

Answer: after the trip, the students are expected to write a report. In fact, this is a critical exercise that evaluates them based on what they have learned. This is significant because it ensures that the students are going out to learn and not just for fun.

Question: How do you involve students with disabilities or special learning needs in field trips to museums and cultural institutions?

Answer: In the school, we provide accommodations based on the needs of the students. The same goes beyond the classrooms. No student is left behind during such trips. The teachers who support them and the aids they use are brought along.

Question: What are the challenges you face?

Answer: Managing the students in the classroom is easy. The same cannot be said when an entire class is taken out on a trip. The students can be hard to manage when they are out and excited.

Interview with the teachers

Question: Do you highly believe in the partnership between the school and local community?

Answer: 1^st teacher: I do believe it is necessary

2^nd teacher: yes, I do

3^rd teacher: the partnership is very important

Question Are you given a chance to choose the trips or you are given the list of planned trips?

Answer: 1^st teacher: the teachers are involved in the process of selecting sites

2^nd teacher: we are involved in selecting the sites and preparing for the visits.

3^rd teacher: yes, we are engaged in meetings to come up with the list.

Question: How do you prepare the students prior to the trip?

Answer: 1^st teacher: we communicate to the students about the trip in advance so that they can be prepared. We also teach on the topic to be covered during the visit.

2^nd teacher: we learn the topics that will be covered and take notes to bring to the site of visit.

3^rd teacher: we begin preparing for the trip when we start covering the syllabus that the trip will be part of.

Question: What do students do during the visit?

Answer: 1^st teacher: the students are encouraged to take notes and ask the instructor or a teacher anything they do not understand.

2^nd teacher: it is clear to the students that the trip is not for fun, they are supposed to learn.

3^rd teacher: The students have to understand that the trip is an extension of the classroom. They will be engaged in teaching and learning.

Question: What do students do after the trip?

Answer: 1^st teacher: after the trip, there is an evaluation of what they have learned which involves writing a report.

2^nd teacher: they write a report or do an exam on what they have learned.

3^rd teacher: they write a report.

Question: How do you involve students with disabilities in field trips?

Answer: 1^st teacher: we take the teachers who teach them and the supporting aids that they use in school.

2^nd teacher: we go with all students with the accommodations they use at school.

3^rd teacher: we take the learning aids that they use at school.

Question: What are the challenges you face?

Answer: 1^st teacher: managing the excited students away from the school is a challenge.

2^nd teacher: classroom management strategies are hard to apply outside the classrooms.

3^rd teacher: we find it challenging to manage the students when we go out.

Interview with students

Question: do you enjoy the trips?

Answer: 1^st student: yes, I enjoy. I get to see many things.

2^nd student:  I like being away from the classroom once in a while.

3^rd student: yes, I do.

Question: do you think trips help you to learn more?

Answer: 1^st student: the trips have helped me to understand topics taught in the class.

2^nd student: yes, there is a lot to learn when I attend the trips.

3^rd student: yes, with the help of the teachers and instructors I get to learn a lot.

Question: Do you have background information to the place you are visiting?

Answer: 1^st student: our teachers teach us about the trips before we attend.

2^nd student: yes, it is a part of what we have already learned in the class.

3^rd student: we are briefed by the teachers before we attend the site.

Question: How do you get to know the place?

Answer: 1^st student: in class when the teacher is teaching the topic.

2^nd student: From the teacher and reading books.

3^rd student: From the topics taught in the classroom.

Question: During the trip what do you do?

Answer: 1^st student: I try to understand as much as possible because of the report or exam we take when we get back

2^nd student: I learn through asking questions from the instructor and the teacher.

3^rd student: I try to learn based on what has been taught in the classroom.

Question: Are you allowed to interact with your classmates?

Answer: 1^st student: yes, we are encouraged to hold discussions in order to enhance understanding.

2^nd student: yes, we are sometimes divided into groups to work together during the trip.

3^rd student: yes, we can ask each other questions and even seek clarification.

Question: is the environment of the site supportive of learning?

Answer: 1^st student: yes, but not all the time as some sites do not have good instructors and we have to learn on our own.

2^nd student: yes, most of them do.

3^rd student: not all the sites, some are not built to support the learning process.

Question: What are the challenges you face?

Answer: 1^st student: we face challenges in some sites, which lack the proper resources to enhance learning such as lecture halls with projectors.

2^nd student: I face challenges when I have to be taught by another person who is not my own teacher.

3^rd student: I have challenges in the sites where there are other students visiting on the same day, especially when there are national or international events.

Analysis of Strength

1. A clear goal of the partnership. The school has a clear goal for the relationship between itself and the community. The goal is critical in setting the path and the direction for the partnership (Bryan & Henry, 2012). It is important to establish what exactly the relationship is expected to accomplish.
2. Enhancing and supporting the learning process. The relationship between the school and the community are based on the need to promote learning among the students (Chapter 7). The design of the process is such that it is based on what the students are learning in the classroom. The fact that the events are founded on the curriculum is critical to support teaching and learning.
3. Accommodations for students with special needs. Development of an inclusive policy is an important element of the partnerships between the school and the community (Auerbach, 2012). Just like the school is inclusive, taking into account the needs of different students, the same should apply when the learning environment is moved away from the classroom. The students with special needs require the same experience as the able students to enhance their learning.
4. Involvement of the teachers in decision making. The teachers are important stakeholders in the learning process. Qian (2015) posited that making them an important element of the relationship between the school and the community serves to make it more effective. They provide important information on the instructional nature of the site visits because they are the providers of instruction and have the closest contact with the learners.

Analysis of Weakness

1. Taking a large number of students for the trip at the same time. Management of the students when they are in large numbers is never easy, especially given the challenge of taking the classroom management practices to an outside environment (Robb & Kano, 2013). The school has been taking a large number of students out, making it hard to manage them.
2. Lack of structured scheduling of the visits. Evidently, there are instances when the students from the school have to make the visits alongside students from other schools. This is especially the case where there are international and national events. This also brings about the challenge of managing the numbers, which, on the other hand, hinder effective instruction.
3. Inadequacy of resources on some of the sites. The learning process, according to Beetham and Sharpe (2013), depends on the availability of the resources that support the teaching and learning process. Hence, where the resources are not adequate, the learning process becomes challenging.

Recommendations

1. Because of the role played by the communities, the various stakeholders should be engaged in providing the necessary resources to promote learning. The communities should be considered an extension of the classroom (Lea & Nicoll, 2013). Hence, the stakeholders, including the school, should come together to provide the resources. For example, there should be a hall for lectures, complete with projectors to provide lectures based on what the students are learning.
2. The school should organize the visits such that they do not coincide with the busy days at the sites. Manning and Bucher (2012) proposed that learning is usually more effective where the groups being taught are smaller. Hence, ensuring that the students do not attend during days where there are many other schools will increase the chances for them to learn because there will be ample time for the same. The instructors will also not be overwhelmed and will give optima tours and instructions.
3. To enhance the learning process, the school should organize the tours such that there will always be a manageable number of students attending at a go. This is also based on the ideas proposed by Epstein (2013) of the need to provide instructions to a manageable number of students. For example, the administration working with the teachers can come up with a policy proposing attendance of the trips by each class at whatever instance. As much as possible, it is critical to avoid the days when the numbers are many, especially when other schools are in attendance.

References

Auerbach, S. (Ed.). (2012). School leadership for authentic family and community partnerships: Research perspectives for transforming practice. Routledge.

Beetham, H., & Sharpe, R. (Eds.). (2013). Rethinking pedagogy for a digital age: Designing for 21st century learning. routledge.

Bryan, J., & Henry, L. (2012). A model for building school–family–community partnerships: Principles and process. Journal of Counseling & Development, 90(4), 408-420.

Chapter 7: Partnership with community organizations and resources, pp. 163-179

Epstein, J. L. (2013). Ready or not? Preparing future educators for school, family, and community partnerships. Teaching Education, 24(2), 115-118.

Lea, M. R., & Nicoll, K. (Eds.). (2013). Distributed learning: Social and cultural approaches to practice. Routledge.

Manning, M. L., & Bucher, K. T. (2012). Teaching in the middle school. Boston, MA: Pearson.

Qian, H. (2015). The Role Transition of Teacher Under the Horizon of Self-directed Learning. Journal of Adult Education College of Hebei University, 1, 010.

Robb, T., & Kano, M. (2013). Effective extensive reading outside the classroom: A large scale experiment. Reading in a Foreign Language, 25(2), 234.