Welcome to Schoolsinteractive!

January 2009: Stop Press!! The Vineyard Academy Complex, Ghana. the Primary wing has now been completed. Click here to see the pics!

The delivery of our vision to see communities restored, is via a process called SIGNAL (Schools Inter-generational and Learning Project). Our aim is to deliver this project each year across Merseyside whilst rolling out ‘best practices’ across the UK; establishing a framework for diverse communities and faith/school clusters which may be tailored to the specific requirements of the locality. Liverpool Hope University has approached Faithworks to partner with us in achieving these goals. WHAT IS SIGNAL SIGNAL has three distinct delivery elements: The engagement of school aged pupils and their parents through ‘core value’ citizenship assemblies The education of those communities through the core value messages via educational packages supported by Service-Learning volunteer students The celebration of the work completed underpinned by social enterprise learning SIGNAL has been delivered through music, art, dance, drama, sport, ICT and environmental packages. …the very ‘strands’ of the New Primary Strategy ‘Excellence and Enjoyment’. Take a few moments to look through some of the projects delivered through this process on the top of the archive homepage site (www.schoolsinteractive.co.uk) Football Fanatics, Freewheelers, Cricket … an off-shoot has been the generation of learning resources as you will see there. Do any projects excite you? Perhaps you would wish to make some worksheets for the worksheets area of the site (http://www.schoolsinteractive.co.uk/dummysite/pages/worksheetshome2.htm). Take time to look at these CITIZENSHIP/ SOCIAL ENTERPRISE projects…then visit the enterprise classrooms area on the archive site (enterprise classrooms) to see how the SIGNAL process was used to encourage schools in the development of their own entrepreneurial ideas for teaching the elements of enterprise in their diverse communities; and with diverse ideas!! WHY SERVICE-LEARNING and why SIGNAL? 'Over the years there has been a growing concern in the Higher Education Academy (HEA) about how to address the need for educating citizens and developing a capable workforce, yet few models exist for simultaneously accomplishing these twin goals. An overarching concern that seems universal (as reported in the results of an international survey of HEA by Berry & Chisholm, 1999) is how do we educate students to have an ethic to serve? Addressing these needs is important for sustaining democracy and civic life as well as maintaining a position within a global economy. We believe that educating the next generation to serve is part of the equation for creating a more just world, locally and globally. In the past, industry often carried the responsibility for training workers. This adult educational model is effective for developing trade specific skills. One limitation of this approach, however, is an absence of attention to developing an ethic of care for others. Addressing the need to educate the masses on ethics has often been conducted through religious institutions. An obvious limitation of a religious approach to developing an ethical society is the historical evidence of the creation of in-groups who are treated with compassion and out-groups who are excluded. Alone, industry and ecclesiastical institutions only partly fulfil society’s need to foster youth’s vocational and ethical development, facilitating their contributions to political, social, and economic life. We suggest that this complex set of needs can be met by the HEA from both faith-based and secular institutions. The HEA is distinct in its ability to meet both needs of developing employees and citizens. For example, citizenship education (CE) and volunteerism guide our work in HEA. Focusing on delivering these outcomes has often left lecturers wondering about the curriculum content and the tools for delivering that content. Clearly our course designs affect how well we deliver CE, as well as whether volunteering is part of the course work or beyond it. As educators, often we have not had the resources and tools for resolving conflicts between curriculum content and employing a pedagogical approach that includes volunteerism. Additionally, we are also challenged to attend to another educational agenda; the use of HEA to produce entrepreneurs. How do we teach CE while encouraging volunteerism and educating future entrepreneurs? We do not profess to have a solid, tried and true method, but we have some evidence from a recent project (SIGNAL) that suggests integrating service-learning (SL) with social enterprise provides a unifying framework for developing academic knowledge, work skills, citizenship education, and volunteerism.’ FROM: LEARNING, TEACHING AND ASSESSING IN HIGHER EDUCATION. DEVELOPING REFLECTIVE PRACTICE. EDITED BY ANNE CAMPBELL AND LIN NORTON. LEARNING MATTERS: CHAPTER 12 , Combing service-learning and social enterprise in higher education to achieve academic learning, business skills development, citizenship education, and volunteerism. John.A. Patterson, (Liverpool Hope University, UK) Colleen Loomis (Wilfrid Laurier Canada)