Sharna completed her UWS Classrooms without Borders Uni placement in November 2019. This is her story:
I am completing a Master of Primary Teaching with Western Sydney University and as per my unit Classrooms Without Borders I completed 25 hours of volunteer work with RDA at Box Hill. I attended the Thursday sessions and worked with various students with a range of abilities and needs.
The purpose for my experience was to increase my intercultural competence and to gain experience working with students who have special needs as one day I may have a student in my classroom who has these additional needs and it will be my duty to ensure I can provide them with the best chance of success. I feel as though the experience really helped me to better my communication skills, especially when working with non-verbal students. I also learnt a lot about how the RDA program benefits these students and seeing them light up and become so confident when they are around the horses was so enjoyable.
Overall, I thoroughly enjoyed my time at RDA and consider it a very beneficial experience which has opened my eyes, changed my attitudes and taught me a range of new skills which I will carry with me throughout my teaching career.
