Learning - UWCSEA Service Programme

Developing compassion and responsibility, our Service programme allows students to put our values into action as they engage in rewarding experiential learning opportunities guided by our service learning curriculum.

At the heart of the UWC mission, service enables students to actively contribute to resolving social and environmental problems, both locally and globally. When students deepen their understanding of why these problems exist, they realise that everyone can play a part in taking informed, purposeful action.

As students encounter significant, real-world issues, they have tangible opportunities to develop the mission competencies through sustained and intentional practice. Whether it be honing their skills as a communicator who can tailor messages to different audiences, or growing their commitment to care as they unite to create change together, our Service programme gives students the chance to develop as individuals who view themselves as changemakers. By having a sense of purpose and forming an emotional connection to issues, Service learning enables students to develop their sense of identity and agency.

As students take action, they are asked to reflect on both the process and the outcome of their action. Importantly, this reflection provides them with multiple opportunities to develop their self identity as capable global citizens, who have agency and the ability to enact meaningful positive change in the world.

Sustainability

Sustainable Development is a key standard in our Service programme. We have identified this as an area where we have perhaps the greatest opportunity to act, as well as learn to shape a better world. As a result, our service learning curriculum has been designed to provide hands-on learning experiences as we support the five pledges of the UN’s Sustainable Development Agenda, which were launched with the Sustainable Development Goals.

Service in action

"There are three ways of trying to win the young. There is persuasion, there is compulsion and there is attraction. You can preach at them: that is a hook without a worm. You can say ‘you must volunteer’; that is the devil. And you can tell them ‘you are needed.’ That hardly ever fails.”
Kurt Hahn, Founder, UWC Movement

Service programme

All students are engaged in age-appropriate, service learning activities, linked directly to our K–12 curriculum, as well as to other elements of our UWCSEA learning programme. While the service interactions across our campuses are different, regardless of campus, school, grade or classroom, all students are striving in each of the three areas of learning identified in our service curriculum.

K–12 Standards

Informed by our mission, values and educational goal, the Standards are three areas of learning that underpin our Service programme. These are the significant concepts that have been used to develop the age-appropriate, service learning experiences for all our students from K1 to Grade 12. Deep links with other elements of the holistic UWCSEA learning programme are embedded across all school sections.

Through our K–12 service curriculum, students revisit these concepts each year as they transition from grade to grade. In the school section descriptions, you will see elements of each core standard interwoven in the descriptions of how students experience our unique Service programme.

Awareness – preparing to act

By developing awareness, we believe our students can become determined global citizens who recognise their individual ability to enact positive change. Our programme intends that students prepare to act by drawing on the skills and qualities of the UWCSEA profile, as well as the knowledge and understanding they have developed in the classroom and elsewhere in our learning programme.

To deeply understand an issue, students are asked to apply their social skills to look through the eyes of different stakeholders in the community. By asking questions, using active listening and developing humility, our students come to realise that their interpretation of an issue may differ from that of those who are directly touched by it.

When our students prepare to take action, they are asked to consider which form of action may be most effective and appropriate, taking into account everything they have learned by examining the situation and the perspectives of those they are aiming to help.

In cooperation with our service partners, students learn about the issues from multiple perspectives, and then plan how to respond based on what they then understand might best address the issue they are targeting. We ask students to consider the type of response in a framework of:

direct action
indirect action
advocacy
research for action

Systems Thinking for Sustainable Development

In developing as 'systems thinker', our aim is for students to understand the ways in which both individuals and groups can plan to engage effectively when developing sustainable solutions to issues affecting both local and global communities.

Our students are encouraged to recognise that apparently obvious short-term solutions may result in unintended consequences. By considering a situation from multiple perspectives, and working in collaboration with others they are given opportunities to develop problem-solving skills as they adjust their actions in response to changes in circumstances.

Taking Action – Being a Changemaker

Students are encouraged to take informed, purposeful action, and to act individually and in groups as changemakers to help bring lasting, positive impacts in their local and global communities.

Taking informed action is one of the ways the UWC mission comes alive in our learning programme. Students might participate in environmental stewardship projects on campus, join a student group working with a community or NGO partner in Singapore or work with other students to advocate for communities in another country. Through participation in the Service programme, students are able to make a lasting impact in College, local and global communities.

As students take action, they are asked to reflect on both the process and the outcome of their action. Importantly, this reflection gives them multiple opportunities to develop their self identity as capable global citizens, who have the ability to enact meaningful positive change in the world.

As students reflect on the process and outcome, they examine their choice of action and consider whether it best addresses the issue they were targeting. Part of the process of reflecting and demonstrating their learning is to think about how they might further their response by using one (or more) of the four types of action we ask them to engage in: