Education for the world of work

Walking towards the Château reception, it was clear that an interesting conversation was taking place.

Another prospective family, busy asking questions about the school. Given their smiles and laughter, they were clearly already feeling at ease. I found out later that the family had enrolled their children and were already looking forward to joining our community.

Nothing unusual about that - unless you consider the fact that this initial welcome to ISB had been conducted, not by our admissions officer, but an ISB student in grade 11 who is enjoying playing his part in this year’s Student Volunteer Programme.

Along with his colleagues, Christopher’s job is clear and well defined. When his timetable allows, he signs up to meet a new family. He learns their names and greets them on the steps of the château. He welcomes them and makes them feel comfortable, before introducing them to our admissions officer. The whole encounter takes only about 10 minutes. But in that brief moment, Christopher performs a very important role on behalf of the school: he welcomes this new family and, in doing so, symbolizes the kind of students that ISB produces.

Today, Christopher is just one of eighteen students – including several from our learning support programme –who, following a rigorous application and interview process at the beginning of the year, were invited to join this year’s Student Volunteer Programme.

So how and why did it all start? The Programme itself was set up two years ago when the External Relations began to think about the double impact of involving students in the task of ‘telling the story of ISB and helping others discover their place in the story’. Some of us, at least, saw a rare win-win opportunity. On the one hand, students were a valuable human resource, enabling us to do more with limited resources. They were also – and much more importantly – a powerfully strategic voice in the communicative task and able to tell the story of our school from a unique perspective. In short, they not only told the story, they embodied it. At the same time, we had the capacity to offer real work experience in the fields of marketing, communications, school admissions, event management and development – all without having to step foot outside the ISB Campus.

ISB student volunteer strategy meetingThe idea floated, the next step was to set up a collaborative project between the High School Student Council, High School administration and members of the External Relations team. A project plan was drawn up and an initial 6 month trial was set in motion. And, not surprisingly, despite the enthusiasm of everyone involved, we learned more what not to do than anything else. After all, ensuring that students are given a meaningful learning experience that also adds significant value to key elements within the marketing and promotional actions of the school, is no easy thing – especially when you also have to compete for ‘attention’ with their highly complex and ever changing curricular, extra-curricular and personal agendas. Two years on, we are much better at knowing what works and what doesn’t. So we have ditched the long term, ill-defined, high maintenance projects, for a range of simple, achievable, well-defined and high-reward projects that guarantee the Programme for success.

... and it is not just about welcoming new families. Student members of the Programme are today actively involved in researching and writing stories for ISB News, writing for Newsweek, working with our Reception team (learning support), updating the ISB website, choosing and uploading photos to the school’s welcome media screens. They are also assisting in the planning, volunteer recruitment and implementation of high profile development events such as our annual Gala Dinner and Auction. It is all taken very seriously. Every student has a job description, has signed a volunteer contract and is supported by a supervisor who assigns tasks, gives assistance and monitors progress. At the end of the year, students can request a letter of recommendation that may accompany their university application or simply be added to their Curriculum Vitae. Some will also receive CAS ‘credit’ for hours spent engaged in various service activities around the school. Everything is connected: from the teaching and learning of key skills in various fields, to high school guidance, service programme and the school’s day-to-day promotional and communication activities.

So what’s next? Well, what is interesting about these sorts of initiatives is the amount of ‘joined-up’ thinking that begins to follow in its wake. The Programme itself is set to become a regular feature of the High School experience at ISB. In moving forward, however, this is just one of a number of plans to provide our students with greater access to valuable, hands-on work experiences, before leaving school. And, of course, by giving this level of visibility to the ‘student voice’ at ISB, we send a very positive message of the school to the outside world.

This article is awaiting publication in IS Magazine (ECIS), Spring 2009.