The Ronald McDonald Learning Program assists school-aged children with serious illnesses and injuries to catch up on missed education following treatment and recovery.
Once a child has returned to school full-time, we provide fully-funded tuition with qualified teachers in the student’s local community. The aim is to assist children to catch up on missed education or to develop foundational skills.
Meet Jace, one of our many RMHC Sydney tutors supporting sick and injured children and their siblings who have stayed at the House.
Read her story here…
"Each child is a precious treasure, deserving of focused attention and sustained commitment. Education is a process that requires consistent learning; learning that occurs in connected sequences.
Learning often occurs one building block at a time. Concepts are frequently linked to one another and require a learner to understand a foundational concept before moving on to another, related one.
If a student experiences health challenges that require them to spend time away from their regular classroom and teacher, the interconnectedness of their learning often suffers.
Not only can they begin to feel disconnected socially, but educationally, they can also feel disengaged and removed from these natural sequences and rhythms.
The Ronald McDonald House Charities Learning Program enables some of these rhythms to be discovered again. Students can, once again, begin to feel like they have the consistent and regular support that they need in order to be able to make sense of the building blocks of their learning.
Students who have missed out on the regularity, consistency, flow and rhythm of learning in their regular classroom can now have access to these stabilisers in a tutoring scenario. Each tutor and student form a bond that allows learning to take place in a safe, nurturing environment, where the student can communicate their particular needs in a direct manner. The tutor is then able to tailor the learning experiences of the sessions in a way that caters for these particular needs.
As a tutor for the Ronald McDonald Learning Program, I have seen these patterns up close. How important it is for our children to receive access to learning supports and frameworks that assist them to ‘recover’ and make up for the time that may have been lost during times of illness and navigation of the hospital system. Students are often so grateful for the additional support that is available to them via the Learning Program.
They are keen to consolidate existing learning and also progress in their studies, and are thankful that the tutors are there to assist them in these pursuits. Their parents and caregivers are grateful for the additional assistance and provision of what, financially, could be an extra burden for them during an already resource-draining season, but what instead becomes a gift; a generosity of heart that gifts their children and themselves a lifelong enrichment of the mind. What a meaningful endeavour it is to support and academically nurture children in their studies, especially those who have already dealt with challenges and obstacles beyond what any child should have to endure."
Become a tutor
Our tutoring program is so important to ensure sick kids get all the support they need to catch up on missed education.
If you are a qualified teacher or university student, be part of this rewarding experience and make a difference in a child’s life.
