At Falinge Park High School we believe community partnerships add value and connection to the world beyond classroom learning. The development of cultural capital, experiential opportunity and ‘real world’ learning all serve to enhance cultural capital for learners and offer aspiration. Through community partnerships we look to develop learners in the following ways:
– developing responsible, respectful and active citizens
– promoting equality of opportunity
– promoting an inclusive environment
– developing pupils’ character, giving them qualities they need to flourish in society
– developing pupils’ confidence and resilience so that they can keep themselves mentally healthy
– preparing pupils for the next phase of education
Our community partnership work supports our offer towards the eight recognised Gatsby Benchmarks:
– a stable careers programme
– learning from career and labour market information
– addressing the needs of each pupil
– linking curriculum learning to careers
– encounters with employers and employees
– experiences of workplaces
– encounters with further and higher education
– personal guidance
A significant strand of our community partnership offer is our strategic work with the Comino Foundation each year.
The Comino Foundation is a national charity which seeks to improve social opportunities for young people; by helping them develop their personal capabilities to unlock their potential to live fulfilling and prosperous lives. At the heart of the education work of the Comino Foundation is the Socratic belief that ‘education should be the lighting of a flame not the filling of a vessel’. Comino Foundation works through their network of schools, universities, charities and other social enterprises across England to develop innovative learning programmes which aim to foster the attitudes and that founder and engineer, Dimitri Comino called GRASP; ‘getting results and solving problems’.
For 13 years Comino Foundation have funded the North West Comino Consortium, a small Community of Practice in Greater Manchester. All consortium stakeholders, believe that real-life learning, developed through partnerships with people and places beyond school, has the power to motivate young people to discover their passion for education and to develop aspirations for a successful future. Projects aim to set learning in real world contexts which complement the knowledge rich curriculum, add to young people’s understanding of the world around them and help them to develop the skills they need to meet real-live challenges.
Our North West Comino core team of educational partnership facilitators bring classroom teachers from Comino Schools together with partners from across the world’s of business, community, culture and social justice to design and develop truly collaborative projects. The space to share professional perspectives and insights brings benefits not just to learners, but also to curriculum leaders, classroom teachers, and external partner organisations, who have the opportunity to grow and extend their repertoire and confidence into new landscapes of practice.
At the heart of our network are our ‘Comino Lead Practitioners’; our key lead staff member inside each of the consortium schools. These highly experienced senior teachers have a real passion for creative partnership working, and lead, connect and advocate for NWCC project work within their school.
Working collaboratively together they steer our development journey by sharing ideas, exchanging new practice and setting authentic challenges which respond to the changing educational landscape.