St Augustine’s welcomes volunteers to help in school especially in assisting with our younger pupils. Volunteers can assist teachers in the classroom in a variety of ways, for example, taking a group or listening to children read, occasionally accompanying classes on school trips or helping with an activity such as Cycle/Road Safety Training.
We attempt to accept all requests from volunteers and these requests tend to fall into two categories; those that are looking to gain experience in a school setting to get experience in advance of a teaching or teaching assistant course ( a prerequisite nowadays for most educationally based courses) and those that are happy to offer support to the school for its own sake. Of course these are not mutually exclusive. Teachers find it much easier to plan for the day if they know in advance about volunteer helpers and so for this reason it is useful to know the regular day(s) or part day(s) that volunteers are offering and then to keep to these.
Volunteers helping with children in a classroom under direct supervision of a teacher do not nowadays need a DBS ( Disclosure and Barring Service); the requirement for a DBS only applies if a volunteer is working in an unsupervised area.
Requests to volunteer can be made through the website or in person. The first point of contact will usually be Miss Swindell who will balance the offer against the need in classes as well as making sure that any volunteer is aware of the school Policy for Volunteers, which includes important information about Safeguarding. Sometimes teaching staff will put out a one-off request for helpers e.g. for school trips.
If for any reason a volunteer has to cancel their help then it is very useful to have advance notice of this via a phone call, text or email to the school office.
To existing volunteers both past and present thank you for your time and effort; it is always valued by the school and individual staff.