Service & Sustainability
Service Learning at British School Manila (BSM) involves a collaborative and reciprocal engagement with our partner communities.
We strive to enable our students to implement a meaningful response to an authentic need. Students have the opportunity to collaborate with a range of Non-Governmental Organizations (NGOs) helping to tackle important local and global issues. Our goal is to develop young people who will make a positive difference in the lives of others long after they leave BSM. Each Year group is linked with a Service Learning Partner. Every student at BSM is involved in Service Learning, every year.
Service Learning in Primary School
During their time in Primary School, students become familiar with a range of issues, such as:
- Early Years: Meeting animals who need special care and participating in play dates with children from local schools and orphanages.
- Year 2: Students study life under water and investigate how our choices impact on the environment, challenging ourselves to make small changes for our future.
- Year 3: Students become familiar with a range of issues, such as sustainable farming, the farm-to-table journey, and the critical concepts of food security and insecurity. This learning contributes to our shared goal of promoting Zero Hunger.
- Year 4: With a focus on responsible consumption & production, students investigate the life-cycle of a T-Shirt and the affect the textile and clothing waste has on communities around the world.
- Year 5: Learn about how access to clean water & sanitation has an impact on the concepts of education, health and gender.
- Year 6: Challenged to think more deeply about the issues facing the Philippines and beyond, for example, by learning about the plight of refugees.
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ASAs related to Service and Sustainability
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Water filters have been donated to highland communities in the Philippines through Year 5's collaboration with Waves4Water NGO
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Saplings have been planted in Mount Purro by the students
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Solar lights have been donated by the BSM Students in the past three years
Service Learning in Senior School
Senior School students are encouraged to take a more active role. We are embedding Service and Sustainability into the curriculum both in terms of classroom teaching and in pastoral time with Heads of Year.
Service becomes a true student-led experience.
Engaging in Service Learning
Engaging in service provides an opportunity for students to feel empowered and motivated to use their individual talents and passions to make a positive difference. Students are actively encouraged to develop their leadership, collaborative, listening, thinking and creative skills, to lead where possible, and to engage others in service that improves our environment and communities.
Make A Difference Week
Students from Years 7-10 participated in our first ‘real world’ Make A Difference (MAD) Week. They participated in 12 different experiences across 9 different locations. Some students were based on site working on themes such as sustainable fashion and waste management. Other teams did day trips out to nearby locations carrying out a whole variety of work in impoverished communities, nature reserves and a school for PWDs. Finally, about 50% of students went on residential trips further afield connecting with tribes, organic farming a PWD village and carrying out nature bioblitzes around forests and rivers.
A major focus of the week was developing character strengths with students being in mixed year group teams and learning how to develop strengths such as team work, appreciation of beauty and excellence, and perseverance.
Community member feedback was overwhelmingly positive both from within our own school community and those that we connected with via our Service Learning Partnerships.