Achieve
Life Skills & Character Education has
been specifically created to ensure the children and
young adults of today are equipped for the prospects
of their tomorrow. As education systems struggle to provide
the knowledge necessary for the complex structure of
adult life, it has become necessary to extend learning
beyond traditional sources.
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Achieve
is an organisation formed to meet the need of educating
a range of
age groups with skills to survive their next steps.
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Ron
Clarke M.B.E. the Mayor of Gold Coast and former
Olympian announced as Patron of Achieve Life
Skills & Education. more... |
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During the years of primary and secondary education,
a child will spend about 17,000 hours at school engaged
in academic and scholastic learning, and that doesn’t
include homework.
In comparison, children and young people spend very few
hours, if any, learning the Lifeskills required to navigate
through life … skills that can make the difference
between a successful life, or one that is less than average. |
THE
VISION OF ACHIEVE LIFESKILLS
OUR VISION that all young
people will have the skills to overcome any obstacles or
challenges that they may face
from time to time, and that they will be able to create
for themselves a happy and fulfilled life, achieving their
innate potential. Only then can one hope to live
a worthwhile life and to ultimately make a contribution
to one’s community and to society at large.
Learning Lifeskills is a little
like playing “join the dots”. A lot of
what we learn from parents and from school makes up
many of the dots, other dots come from various areas
of our lives, such as sport, friends, TV, music, reading
and other personal and social experiences.
Lifeskills are the lines that join the dots so as
make sense of what may seem unconnected and paint
a clear picture of this thing called life.
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 A little like drawing lines to connect the
dots and make sense of the picture, our purpose at Achieve
Lifeskills is to teach children and young people valuable skills
to make practical sense of their lives, and most importantly,
to take action and put it all to good use.
Our
goal is to see young people grow into
confident and happy adults by taking charge of life and leading
it in the direction they want it to go, rather than stumbling
their way through it …to become more resilient so as
to overcome obstacles and setbacks along the way and to live
their lives on purpose. (see story, The
Tale of the Two Seeds, to understand the philosophy behind
Achieve Lifeskills).
Achieve Lifeskills was founded principally
to engage children and young people in the education of Lifeskills
and the development of good character. It is the founder’s
dream that every child will grow up into an adult who feels
their life has meaning and is worth living … free from
the feelings of worthlessness and the subsequent ills of depression
and substance abuse.
ACHIEVE SCHOOLS
The first Achieve Lifeskills
schools are in Melbourne. However
there will soon be schools throughout Australia and New Zealand. Our
aim is to be within reach of every child in Australia and New
Zealand by 2010.
Achieve classes are conducted as an extra-curricular
activity, usually after hours at a local school or community
hall and each program level takes one whole school term to
complete (i.e. 9 to 10 weeks). The course content is
broken up into different groups so as to cater for different
ages and levels of development. The following indicates
the number of groups and levels that make up each different
group:
Primary School (grades 5 and 6) - 3
levels (E1,
E2 and E3)
Secondary School (in age groups) - 3
levels (S1,
S2 and S3)
Tertiary (all ages and levels) - 3
levels (T1,
T2 and T3)
Job Seekers - 2
levels (J1
and J2)
Parent Course - 2
levels (P1
and P2)
In order
to make it easy and flexible for
children and young people to benefit from Achieve Lifeskills,
the various levels do not have to be taken consecutively and
can be done when convenient and when the course is being offered. For
example, a Primary School student can start with Level E1 in
the second term of Grade 5, but then she may choose to do Level
E2 in the last term of Grade 5, and finally do Level E3 in
the third term of Grade 6. Also, if so chosen, a level
can be repeated if desired. All this depends on when
the courses are being offered, depending on availability of
teachers and resources. The courses and dates available
will always be posted on this web-site under Course Dates.
We believe that for effective learning to
take place, the education of Lifeskills should be considered
as no different to learning a musical instrument, or learning
how to play a sport. These are all examples of activities
that require sustained application in order to master and put
into action what is being learned; our main courses run consecutively
for 9-10 week classes, a whole school term, for each level
in the program.
There are a number of “crash course” type
methods that attempt to teach children various skills, but
these are not nearly as effective in forming new and good habits,
as is a sustained period of education, guidance and contact. These
crash courses are also usually quite expensive or cost prohibitive
for the majority of families.
If you feel your child can benefit from attending
Achieve Lifeskills, contact us via
email and we’ll be
happy to answer all your questions and to inform you of where
you will be able to enroll for term 4, 2004.
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