Schools

Your school should have already received some information about Anti-Poverty Week, which was sent out to principals and heads of P&C Committees. In this section, you can find out more about how your school can get involved, get some guidance on organising an activity for your school, including some ideas for topics to focus on and ideas for activities to organise. There are also links to some useful resources and class materials specifically designed for schools.

How Can Schools can Get Involved

There are three main ways your school can get involved in Anti-Poverty Week.

First, you could organise an activity as part of Anti-Poverty Week. See Organising an Activity for your School.

Second, Anti-Poverty Week is an ideal opportunity to bring poverty into the school curriculum. You could use the week as a focus to teach children about poverty, its causes and consequences and ways it can be prevented or resolved. See General Resources and Class Materials for some resources and ideas.

Third, you could use the week to launch a program at your school to ensure that students who are experiencing poverty or hardship are able to fully participate in all aspects of school life. This might include for example using an 'equity checklist' to identify areas where those students might be excluded. For information and ideas, see How can schools help students from low-income families? by the Brimbank Emergency Relief Network www.antipovertyweek.org.au/Brimbank Booklet.pdf

Organising an Activity for your School

Involving children and young people through school activities is an essential part of Anti-Poverty Week, and as many schools as possible are encouraged to do something, however small it may be.

You don't need to get approval to organise an activity, but please send us details by emailing or sending us a Registration Form. See Joining In for general information about joining in Anti-Poverty Week and to find out what support Anti-Poverty Week can offer you.

Ideas for Topics

We have set out here some ideas for themes to plan your activity or activities around, based on things that schools have done in previous years. These are just ideas - you can focus on anything relating to poverty that you want to.

Look at local poverty. You could focus on disadvantage in the children's own community, the causes and consequences of local poverty issues and the importance of local community action and support. You could encourage the children to think about the ways they can become involved in solutions to these issues.

Get to know a local community or welfare organisation. You could explore the work of a local community or welfare organisation, the practical "on the ground" poverty issues it deals with and how it fits in with other community or government strategies.

Understand socio-economic groups and how the local community fits in. You could look at different socio-economic groups in Australia, how they vary by region and where the children's own school or community fits in, how this affects people living in the relevant community and how disadvantage can be avoided or resolved.

Look at some global poverty issues. Alternatively, you could look at issues relating to global poverty, for example poverty issues in other countries, trade, aid, the relationship between countries and how, for example, the children’s everyday actions, such as shopping choices, might affect people in other countries.

Examine the practical aspects of poverty. You could examine the causes and effects of some of the more practical aspects of poverty, for example, the consequences of poor education, diet or low income.

Focus on a particular local, national or global poverty cause or issue. You could focus on a particular local, national or global cause that the children can become involved in and support on an ongoing basis, for example through raising money, sponsoring or through some partnership arrangement.

Ideas for Activities

Depending on your area or areas of focus, you could organise one or more of the following activities (again, they are just ideas - you can do anything that suits your school or your local community).

  • Organise a public exhibition or display to highlight your chosen topic (for example, posters or an exhibition to represent a local or global problem, or display silhouettes or symbols made by the children to represent the number of people in your local community who are homeless).
  • Arrange for a local community or welfare organisation or charity or aid organisation to work with the school during Anti-Poverty Week. This could involve a brainstorming or debating session about your chosen topic, smaller group sessions to discuss issues in more detail, making posters or a brochure or guide, presentations by the children, a group activity or game and/or a poster or art competition to be judged by the organisation.
  • Visit a local community or welfare organisation, which could include a tour, some work experience and meeting staff and clients.
  • Help the children to organise a walk, sleep-out, petition or letter to local MPs.
  • Invite a guest speaker from an organisation relevant to your chosen topic (for example, an MP, representative of a community or welfare organisation or someone who works with or has experienced poverty).
  • Organise a partnership with another school in the locality or state that has different socio-economic issues so that the children can learn from and with each other.
  • Organise a partnership with a local infant or primary school so that the children can ‘buddy’ with or mentor younger children who are disadvantaged or at risk.
  • Organise a partnership or sponsoring arrangement with a school or community overseas, or sponsor a school child in Australia (see, for example, the Smith Family Learning for Life Program).
  • Help the children put in place an action plan for a particular project. For example to enable children who are disadvantaged to take part in sport, this could include collecting sport equipment (new equipment donated by sponsors or used equipment donated by the children or local families), organising a local league for the sport or regular time to play and encouraging a local business such a gym or personal trainer to train or referee.
  • Organise a collection (e.g. clothes or food) that relates to your chosen topic.
  • Organise a performance or concert, art auction or exhibition, or fete or family day to raise awareness about your chosen topic or to raise money for it. A fete or family day could include stalls or displays by other community, charity or aid organizations.
  • Hold an anti-poverty dinner or lunch where children eat a ‘poverty line’ meal.
  • Organise a practical exercise (e.g. shopping on a budget), which could include a visit to the local shopping mall or getting the children to think about what they think of as “necessities” and living without them.
  • Help the children to research statistics that demonstrate the differences in for example income, education, employment in different areas and regions of Australia or their state.
  • Get the children to produce projects, essays or artwork about their experiences during the week.
  • Set up a competition or annual award to recognise children who help out in the community.
  • Hold school, class or group discussions or debates about your chosen topic.
  • Hold a school exhibition or display of work produced for Anti-Poverty Week and/or of information about your chosen topic, for example in the school library or hall.
  • Publish a special edition of the school newsletter explaining activities carried out and including information about your chosen topic.

For examples of activities in previous years, see APW 2003, APW 2004, APW 2005, APW 2006 and APW 2007 and for activities organised this year, see the Calendar of Activities.

For more information and ideas, see the Australian Education Union's Why not do something with your class in Anti-Poverty Week? or the South Australian Department of Education and Children's Service's Anti-Poverty Week resources.

General Resources and Class Materials

The following resources have been prepared especially for use in schools. For links to more general resources on poverty see Resources.

Poverty in Australia

Global Poverty

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Anti-Poverty Week
contact: apw@antipovertyweek.org.au
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