Partnerships need to be a two way relationship; not just one school using the other as a resource. Mutual relationships are where both schools share ideas and expertise, not where one school is seen as the ‘expert’.
UK schools fundraising for Southern partner schools can distort relationships and the power balance, and can negatively affect the learning that is the key objective.
Establishing good, honest working relationships between partners should be one of the priorities for the partnership in the early years.
Fundraising can promote stereotypical views, particularly in the early stages, which undermine the concepts of equity in successful partnership relationships.
Schools need to be aware of this dilemma and ensure that collaborative learning exchanges between pupils of similar ages/stages are not adversely affected.
Pupils can easily sense that both schools are not perceived as truly equal with one school ‘helping’ the other and this can affect the outcomes of joint curricular work. For this reason all fundraising needs to be treated cautiously, especially in the early stages of partnership, in order to avoid creating or reinforcing a donor-recipient relationship.
That is not to say that fundraising is a taboo. Many successful partnerships organise fundraising events but partner schools have to be careful that money is not the primary goal of a partnership otherwise the relationship can become distorted as well as making mutual learning goals more difficult to achieve.
Fundraising may be slowly introduced once mutual learning outcomes are established. It can be used to support partnership activities like communication, teacher and pupil exchanges or development of joint curriculum activities rather than improving facilities in partner schools.
Where fundraising does happen, all schools should be involved in planning a strategy, in undertaking fundraising activities and in agreeing on how funds will be spent.
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