Chat with us, powered by LiveChat

The Winchendon School

The best college prep school for students with significant unrealized potential

Service Learning

Buddy-Up for the Love of a Game

United in Sports Service Learning Project

The value of team sports goes beyond the score. Sports can support social and personal development throughout life. But what happens when you want to play but can’t participate? The Winchendon School’s (TWS) Service Learning Project United in Sports began to tackle that question at the end of the 2016-17 school year. Collaborating over the summer months with the school superintendents for Gardner, Narragansett, and Winchendon K-12, the project student leaders Justin ’18 and Seth ’18, discovered the lack of an organized sports league for special needs students in North Central Massachusetts.  Believing every child has the right to play sports, Justin and Seth partnered with community leaders, learned how to overcome the limitations of special needs students and recruited volunteers to bring the joy of a soccer game to 15 area kids who had never played on a team before.

Using the successful model of the Miracle League, a baseball only program providing opportunities for children with disabilities to play, and Special Olympics: Unified Sports Program, Seth, a four-year senior, and Justin built their program with volunteers serving as “buddies,” assisting and encouraging the players and keeping them safe on the playing field.

The TWS Service Learning model begins with student driven ideas. For 2017-18, the school offers 19 Service Learning programs broken into five categories.  Student leaders attend a conference before the school year begins and work to hone their leadership skills twice a week in a credit class.

Service Learning Versus Community Service

Service Learning programs differ from Community Service in five distinct ways:

  1. Incorporates Intentional Learning Goals
  2. Emphasizes Understanding Before Action
  3. Students Lead Projects
  4. Service Learning Emphasizes Building Partnerships
  5. Achievement Measured Not Hours Spent

At TWS, Service-Learning is deliberate, purposeful, and a core signature program. Students in United in Sports, are learning how to make a program successful and the special needs players feel accomplished. Chloe B.’19, a TWS day student, wraps it up best, “…you have to focus on their abilities and what they [the players] can do because there’s more that they can do than they can’t.”

To learn about United in Sports opportunities for Winter ’17 and Spring ‘18 click here. 
To learn more about TWS’s Service Learning program click here.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Leading through Theater: A Service Learning Project

The inside of The Winchendon School’s Trustee Hall will be transformed on Monday afternoons as young budding thespians will be stretching their limbs and warming their vocal cords as they learn about theater in a free afterschool program. TWS students Abby (’19) and Isabella (’18) will be leading area elementary students through guided discovery, and theater exercises. The afternoon sessions will culminate with a showcase production at the end of the yearlong project.

Co-directors of the program, Isabella, a four-year senior, and Abby chose to develop the program due to their own love of theater. The two met at The Winchendon School and a fast friendship formed as the two have performed in shows from A MidSummer’s Night Dream and High School Musical to this year’s upcoming production of Fiddler on the Roof.

“Part of our motivation for offering this free afterschool program,” said Isabella, “is because not everyone gets the same opportunity to learn about theater at a young age. I wasn’t exposed to theater until I was older. The Service Learning program here (at TWS) gives us the opportunity to really pursue what we’re passionate about in a new way.”

Theater by its nature, is an art form that depends on collaboration, one of the Great Eight core values at TWS. Theater raises SAT scores, reading comprehension, and stimulates innovation and creativity. “In short,” says Abby, “we want to be sure the community has an opportunity to learn valuable life skills through theater.”

Service Learning Immersion

At TWS students are immersed in a yearlong Service Learning project of their choosing. Projects are designed by student Service Learning Leaders and we believe Service Learning provides perhaps the most effective “classroom” where we can practice these attributes, and serve our community as well.

Abby and Isabella’s Theater for Change is like a theatrical production itself. From writing the “script” for their project to directing the weekly afterschool meetings, the two are responsible for their own growth as leaders and are empathetic towards young students who may just be developing the courage to stand on stage for the first time.

With their own talent and experience, Abby and Isabella could easily take center stage in the planned end of year showcase, but they realize their afterschool club members need to discover their own “voice.” They understand the end production may not be perfect, but they won’t mind. “It’s not about perfection but about learning to evolve through the process,” says Abby. “Our goal is to get them out of their comfort zone.”

logo