For schools to thrive in the current education landscape, strong community partnerships must be built and maintained to ensure schooling communities receive additional support for student learning, wellbeing and future career pathways.
The Onslow Education Collaboration is a great example of a strong partnership between Chevron Australia and the Western Australian Department of Education, which recently announced that this partnership would continue for a further three years.
The partnership sees Chevron connect with Onslow School and its other community partners to provide outreach services, in addition to the provision of specialist staff, resources and programs at Onslow School, to support improved learning and social and emotional outcomes for students including.
Creating Communities has proudly worked with both Chevron Australia and Onslow School to enhance their social impact and identifying opportunities for the partnership to continue its support of students in Onslow.
Working with Chevron to identify their impact
In 2021, Chevron Australia appointed Creating Communities to conduct a Social Needs Analysis in Onslow, focusing on Chevron’s strong history of support for social service provision in Onslow and the holistic, collaborative approaches to positive impacts in the community.
Using the Creating Communities Rope Model that is centred around multiplying impact, we examined Chevron’s impacts through their community investments, while also identifying the opportunity and gaps that exist in the Onslow community. This method was essential in effectively supporting key areas of health, education, environment, economic development and sense of community in Onslow.
By examining Chevron’s community investments and by engaging with the local community in this process, we identified a range of ways that with the support of Chevron, Onslow School could enhance their communication and engagement with key stakeholders and the community, implement culturally appropriate learning opportunities and enhance student engagement.
A strategy for engagement
Creating Communities also worked on behalf of the partnership between Chevron and Onslow School to consult with staff and members of the community to help inform future strategies to address key issues, opportunities and aspirations raised by key stakeholders.
Creating Communities Director of Engagement and Education Andrew Watt conducted a number of workshops with school staff and community organisations, that helped inform the Onslow School Engagement Strategy 2022 -2024.
A key objective of this strategy is to generate collaborative partnerships and support that will enable each student to reach their full potential.
The continuation of the Onslow Education Collaboration for three years through funding from Chevron will ensure Onslow School can continue to enhance young people’s engagement with learning.
The partnership follows the successful pilot program launched in 2020 that connects the Onslow school with Chevron’s other community partners.
In extending it, the Collaboration will partner with more organisations supported by Chevron, including Telethon Speech & Hearing to build on the language, literacy and numeracy skills of students.
Andrew Watt said it was great to see such a positive example of community collaboration in the education sector.
“Schools have always been a vital part of communities and we know that the high-performing schools are the ones that forge good relationships with external stakeholders and Onslow School is demonstrating how it can be done,” he said.
“The partnership between Chevron and Onslow Primary School is a great example of how these relationships can function to support young people’s education and wellbeing.”
