This year, our Bridging Year group have been privileged to take part in a community engagement initiative of the RUCE: Rhodes University Community Engagement office called BuddingQ.
“BuddingQ was designed to address this literacy crisis in a play-based manner, where it most matters…in Grade R, while pre-literacy skills are being developed. Volunteers are trained by fellow students who have taken the Community Psychology Elective in their Honours year. Through 15 sessions in the year, they engage with children to develop their fine and gross motor skills with the aim of improving the foundations required for formal literacy education when they enter Grade 1.” RUCE
Community Engagement (CE) is an important pillar of our ‘educating for life’ motto at Kingswood College. This term our Bridging Year group attended training to help facilitate literacy programmes to Grade R pupils in our surrounding communities. In essence, this means that our Bridging Year group have been trained as facilitators of the BuddingQ programme and have already begun to put their skills to use.
In line with CE principles, this project is mutually beneficial, in the sense that the children benefit from the school/literacy readiness support that they get, while our BYs now have an accredited short course to add to their CVs and have had gained valuable experience in the process. To find out more about this exceptional programme click here.
“In celebration of Youth Day last week, the Kingswood Bridging-year students along with some RU student leaders, met at Kingswood to discuss some of our societal challenges (particularly around literacy). Each BY student presented a topic that challenged their thoughts or addressed a gap in their understanding from their BuddingQ short course. Their research and presentation were well-prepared and demonstrated so much growth and personal development. And, as a result, the buzz groups after each presentation were topical debates, rich with well-thought opinions.” – RUCE, Rhodes University Community Engagement Office, June 21 at 12:56 PM
To find out more about this exceptional programme or download the handbook, click here.