During the 6-days of community service, beginning from 6th August and ending on the 20th, various nearby schools visited Fountainhead and us, the students of fountainhead school, organized different activities which were interactive and interesting such as, arts and craft, dance, football, etc. so they could have a fun and eventful time during the course of the 3 weekends.
As someone who opted for dance during that time, all the three weekends were packed with enthusiasm and liveliness. All the children were very cooperative and eager to learn all that we had to offer. On the first weekend, managing all the children and coordinating amongst the FS volunteers was a task as the amount of people who showed up had a different way of learning and 70% of them had come to learn here for the first time. The children attending dance, also had a very diverse age group as we had children from 7 years of age up to 15 years of age which made the first time pretty chaotic. The FS volunteers were underprepared on the first Saturday which made us react and handle the situation as quickly as possible in order to avoid any disturbance and for the day to go smoothly. Although after a tiring and hectic first day, we were then able to prepare ourselves for the amount of chaos that had needed to be handled from the next day itself. The FS volunteers planned the entire dance ahead of time and also divided children into batches that each volunteer would look after which made the teaching and learning experience quite manageable and easy for everyone present. Because of the previous planning, thought and dedication put into the managing of the experience, the next two weekends went pretty effortlessly. Another reason for the same was that the first weekend allowed us to create a bond and rapport with the students which also contributed to making the learning process straightforward and also very wholesome.
LO3: Demonstrate how to initiate and plan a CAS experience
On the first weekend, we faced significant challenges due to under-preparation. The diverse group of children, aged 7 to 15, had varying learning styles and abilities, which made coordination difficult. With 70% of participants being first-timers, we struggled to manage the large turnout effectively. This highlighted the importance of prior planning, as we had to react quickly and improvise to maintain order and engagement. Learning from the initial chaos, the FS volunteer team initiated a systematic approach for the subsequent weekends. We prepared detailed plans for the dance sessions, divided the children into manageable groups, and assigned specific volunteers to guide each batch. This strategy allowed us to streamline the teaching process and cater to the diverse needs of the participants.
LO 5 – Demonstrate skills and benefits of working collaboratively.
Working together and portraying collaborative and social skills was very important between FS volunteers during the weekends because this was a group task and working separately would only result in a failure, unlike the success this was because of working synergistically. Working together also benefited the group as it avoided clashes between us (the volunteers) which provided a highly welcoming environment for the students and made the experience more enjoyable for both the students and us. Working with others is generally easy for me as i have been brought up in a very collaborative environment and have improved my social skills over the years. Due to these reasons, working within a group has never been a task for me and has always been a very effortless experience for me.
LO 6 – Engagement with issues of global significance.
The issue that we catered to was SDG 4 – quality education. This is a very important issue to focus on as many children worldwide do not get the opportunity to receive quality education due to various factors such as discrimination, poverty and other factors. Knowing about such an important issue, I was inspired by the children I interacted with, to bring change. After volunteering for community service, I found out that the issue of quality education is really important to focus on and I would like to take some action to build a better society in the future.
Lo 7 – Recognize and consider the ethics of choices and actions.
From a very young age, I have been taught that kindness and taking responsibility to help others is very important in society. If we have resources and opportunities to help those in need, we should always use them and our skills to create a better world around us. That is what I demonstrated in community service. I had time and the skills to teach dance and spread kindness and happiness to kids, so I took that opportunity and went for it.
Through this experience of community service, I learnt a lot and improved my social skills. I also demonstrated a few learner profile attributes during this process like communicator, open-minded, caring and more.
