Hands on Hanford
The school holidays are nearly upon us and teachers everywhere are heaving a sigh of relief and looking forward to six to eight weeks of blissful holiday, perhaps travelling the world, sorting out the garden or getting through the reading list. Lucky them!
The reality, of course, is rather different. School holidays are, indeed, holiday time for the pupils, but for teachers, a more accurate description perhaps is “non-contact time”.
Hanford staff in particular have a busy time ahead of them as we are launching our new enrichment programme in September.
We have always offered a wide range of co-curricular activities from drama to dance, cooking to crochet or croquet, bushcraft to badminton, you get the idea.
From September we will be offering a new programme which aims to encourage learners to use their creative skills, be intellectually curious and socially and morally responsible, empowering them all to develop into confident adults.
We want to build the girls’ capacity as learners outside the usual classroom activities.
We also teach life skills that benefit them beyond the classroom, allowing them to develop an appreciation for cultural and community issues, teamwork and social responsibility.
Although our pupils are young, aged from 7-13, we don’t think it’s too early to be helping them think about their careers. Gone are the days when you would follow a set path for life; nowadays, a career path is very different and the young people of today will probably have six or seven different strands to their journey through the world of work.
This means that transferable skills are of major importance.
In shaping our new enrichment programme, we looked at what employers said students lacked when they first entered the world of work. Surprisingly, well, it surprised us, was a huge concern about the ability to manage your career, your boss and those around you.
This was followed by the ability to manage up and negotiate/influence within your chosen job; employers would like students to be a bit more self-aware and to have a bit more emotional intelligence.
Also high on the list was the lack of data handling and real-world analytical skills. Finally employers said they are employing for potential rather than a particular skillset, so these factors are directing our thinking about what we offer as an enrichment activity.
Our new enrichment activities will give the girls the chance to focus on the skills they need, based on using the information they learn in the classroom. Practical skills will go hand in hand with soft skills and we will make sure that we give the girls the opportunity to steer the direction of these sessions rather than be forced to follow a set curriculum, as this greater responsibility increases engagement in the activity, in the classroom and in learning beyond the classroom.
We will mix up the traditional teacher-student style of teaching and give the girls the opportunity to devise and lead sessions based on their interests whilst keeping in mind our aims for enrichment.
Enrichment activities already on the table are an entrepreneur club where the girls will be challenged to find a niche in the market, design a service or product, work out costings and bring their product to the community.
You may see us at a market in Sherborne!
Another group will be focusing on publishing the school’s weekly newsletter from finding the stories and taking the photos to publishing and distributing the finished document. We will focus on qualifications that the girls can take away from Hanford and continue to use - first aid, pool safety to name but two.
Back to the summer holidays! I hope pupils, teachers and parents have a very happy time. For those of us lucky enough to live in Dorset, we have an embarrassment of riches to explore and enjoy on our doorstep.
Where Next?
