RP Online: Packing Day
Last Saturday a team of 30 volunteers attended a packing day for our upcoming RP Online. We spoke to Program Director, Emma Hart, and Logistics Manager, Demi Bradford, who told us more about what was involved in preparing for the big day!
RP Online is a customised week-long virtual education and engagement program for rural, regional and remote schools. The program will be supporting 11 schools this semester. “We’re going to a diverse range of schools from across Western Australia, from far north Wangkatjungka to down south at Tambellup,” Demi said.
RP Online Volunteers ready to send out resources to their schools.
“We’ve tried to make the experience as simple for schools as possible,” Emma explained. “The idea is that they’ll open up the box and inside they will have all the resources they need for the lessons which the school will be running. We will then have our online platform which will have all the video explanations and lesson plans for the activities so teachers can simply press play on the videos and use the materials we have provided to run exciting sessions in their classrooms.”
Education Officer Kate Wells with her custom made TLG key rings.
One challenge in organising RP Online was to ensure that each school had the correct number of resources allocated. This semester has been particularly difficult for schools to estimate their attendance as a result of COVID-19 infection and close contact rules. “We liaised with the schools based on their class sizes and needs. We then ensured each school would have the resources for three STEM activities. The Ed team did a really good job to ensure we catered each delivery to the school’s needs,” Demi said.
Packing day brought everything together with volunteers getting to meet their program teams to send out supplies to their schools. “We split volunteers into their school groups, consisting of two schools where volunteers working in teams packed resources and online learning experiences for the teams at the two schools,” Emma explained. The items being sent over include resources for STEM activities, arts and craft and prizes. Kate from the Education Team even made custom TLG key rings for the participants in RP Online!
“Packing day was a wholesome way to get to meet our RP team and work together to get education resources ready to send to our schools”
Emma praised the combined effort across teams which has brought the pilot program to life. “The Ed team have been working really hard the whole semester to make engaging lessons, the Logistics team have also been instrumental in organising the packing and delivery to schools. All of the teams have been trying to make this a really adaptable and flexible experience which is catering to the actual needs of schools.”
Constantinos Toufexis preparing a STEM activity for an RP Online school
There is also potential for the program to be run again in the future. “We’ve definitely discussed the potential for this to be something that becomes more of an ongoing program that can be easily replicated.”
RP Online will take place from June 20th to the July 1st. Whilst applications are now closed, if you are interested in signing up for future TLG programs and becoming a TLG Volunteer you can sign up here.
Written by TLG’s Public Relations Officer, Luke de Castro.
