1910 - Montessori Teacher

Notes

X is a secondary school teacher, with a history in primary school. He already actively engages volunteers to interact with his students around careers.He takes excursions where those visits tie in with what they've already been looking at in other work at school - eg. if it's to go look at a printing press, he has has the lead printer talk about their work and ask questions that lead to stories about that person's career pathway.Primary school students like role-play, eg. let's all "be doctors". Costumes, props.

Q. How do you find volunteers?
A. From my network. One contact leads to another. I'm well connected with other teachers and a wide variety of professional in Wellington. I just start asking. I'm not afraid to go out asking.

Q. What about the relationship after collab with a volunteer?
A. Even really engaged volunteers might say they want to do it again. But as time goes, my school moves on to other areas, so it's no longer relevant to do it again. So the contact gets lost. It may be that leadership from the school maintains a relationship.Schools are kind of 'winging it'. Fairly short sighted - they see something coming up and just respond with a short amount of lead time.In his experience, volunteers are always really motivated. If it's come to the point they've said yes, they are really there and reliable.The biggest pain point is aligning timetables - school/class and volunteer.

I need to reach out to get things going. I need to use my network. I see the volunteer time as really precious and don't want to much them about. Health and Safety is another big pain. From a national policy point of view it's ok to have volunteers alone with kids. But a school might have their own policy that is different.
Even though it's allowed, if a parent heard that a volunteer was left alone for part of the day with the kids it might not be taken well.Parents make up a big part of current pool of volunteers schools pull in.Volunteers need to be self-assured. It's a real killer when they get rattled by the audience, lose confidence and the whole thing loses momentum.It's good to look at a volunteer and start to pick apart their skill set.

Are there tools to do this for volunteers? Can they be presented with ways to look at their own careers and the parts that make it up?

X was looking at the Mountain Safety website - it had top tips for preparing for a tramp. Could you have top tips for volunteers?Volunteers should ask questions of the kids, this helps.

WORKSHOP - can you run it like a workshop?"Just in Case VS Just in Time". Forecasting your time is a big pain.What about video links to volunteers? (edited)