The Learning Journey

What is a Challenge program?

A Fulcrum Challenge is a Personal Development and Social Awareness Program for 16 to 18 year students and is designed to complement existing schooling commitments.

In partnership with People=Positive - a leading player in the provision of training and development services in the UK's - we deliver a 3 day Workshop that concentrates on identifying and promoting self-belief, personal motivation, commitment, acceptance of real responsibility as well as the contribution they can make working within a team.

The method underpinning our Personal Development Workshop is based on the simple premise of:

• the best way to learn is to do
• the purpose of learning is to improve performance
• the measurement of learning is in the quality of change it produces.

Hence the challenge program is based on an Action Learning approach which takes tasks as the vehicle for learning and that there is no learning without action and no deliberate action without learning. Concentrating on the Level 3 Key Skills a Challenge encourages the students to take responsibility for themselves and develop the range of essential skills and attributes they will need to make an innovative and creative contribution in the future world of work while gaining a better understanding of the concept of global citizenship.

Fulcrum and the ASDAN Award

Fulcrum is now a Pilot Centre for the ASDAN Level 3 Certificate of Personal Effectiveness. This Qualification - Accreditation Number 100/3560/63 - is approved within the National Qualification Framework illustrating the Wider Key skills of "Introduction to working with others", "Introduction to improving own learning & performance", "Introduction to problem solving", "Communicating through discussion", "Planning and carrying out research" and "Planning and giving oral presentation".

As an approved qualification it will be eligible for school and college points. Being in broad terms on the same as an "AS Level" it will help the participants with their university and career prospects while enabling them to make a greater contribution to school life in their final year.

Student Fund-raising

Experience has shown that personal fund-raising is a major learning experience for all the past participants. While the level of funds the students are required to raise is agreed with the Challenge Sponsor, the actual activity is seen as a major learning experience and is required to be written up as part of their project management [plan / do / review] requirement under the ASDAN Certificate of Personal Effectiveness

The Fulcrum Program

the Fulcrum program comprises of three stand-alone modules:

• Personal Development Workshop
Foundation provides though their Workshop the start of the learning journey. Expertly facilitated, the students work together on shared tasks over four intensive days. The learning environment is safe and yet demanding. They are helped to identify the specific areas of performance they need to improve on. While exploring and understanding the issues that may be holding them back, they gain an insight, confidence in and a clear concise and powerful perception of their leadership and team membership behavior and its affects both positive and negative on others.
• Local Community Service
Each Challenge team is required to select an ongoing community project within their home community and commit to supporting that project through voluntary work. The type of voluntary work is not important, what is, is for them to work for their own community as a team. This activity is written-up as part of the ASDAN evaluation.

• Overseas Cultural Visit - Fulcrum Village Community Project.
With Foundation staff giving continuity of training, the overseas activity concentrates on key social issues that relate directly to the three main themes of Team Working, Diverse Community Interaction and Working in a Foreign Country.

Fulcrum's goal is to provide students with the values and opportunities to enable them to develop sound judgments and make wise choices with respect to the global community

The projects are based in India and Africa and have been carefully researched and selected against a clear set of criteria. They are real projects in the eyes of the local inhabitants without being deemed "Charitable". Selected as a good learning experience, this allows the students to work hands-on on a project and gives them the experience of living in a third world country under local conditions. It also allows them to meet and integrate with the indigenous population and experience their culture. The team also visits heritage sites and has the opportunity of seeing the local wildlife.

Now read more about the ethics that drive Fulcrum

 

Contact us at office@fulcrum-challenge.org
A British Registered Charity no 1072830
Words and photos © 1998-2002 Fulcrum. Site design and code,
except where otherwise attributed, © 2000-2002 James Gater.
Last changed on August 10 2006, 00:00 am

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