Future Forwards

Accelerator 4: Communicate the vision and
the strategy to create buy-in and attract a
growing volunteer army.

The Intersessions Planning Team was our volunteer army. They envisioned, designed and planned the prototype. This guiding coalition set to work creating and executing the action plans building partnerships, for designing courses, recruiting instructors, creating schedules, creating communication channels, providing a wide range of material and logistical support, gathering feedback and continually refining the prototype. This resulted in high level of student and parent engagement and positive feedback and buy-in.

Accelerator 5: Accelerate movement toward the vision and the opportunity by ensuring that the network removes barriers.

We acted to remove barriers. For example, the first barrier encountered just before the first Intersession was around communications. Parents registered their students several weeks in advance. However, the Planning Team noticed a level of uncertainty amongst parents around participation of their children in the program. The Team realized that this uncertainty could become a barrier to the prototype’s success.

They acted to remove this barrier by communicating about:

 Transportation - facilitating transportation for students

 Meal information - customizing snacks and lunches for students
 Individualized course schedules
The next barrier that presented itself during the first prototype emerged in the form of an early
monsoon. All sports courses were scheduled to run on our outdoor fields and playgrounds. In order to
ensure these courses could run, we remodeled our basement levels and created indoor soccer and
tennis courts. Our first Intersessions prototype occurred during the monsoons and all our sessions ran
smoothly indoors.

The prototyping process uncovered many barriers, some bigger than others. But taking an active stance to identify and remove these barriers throughout each different Intersession allowed barriers to become a basis for improving the quality of the overall program.

Accelerator 6: Celebrate visible, significant short-term wins.

Some of the most immediate celebrations for the team was parent feedback. Here are a few examples:

 “ I learned that even young children can be taught to be observant, alert and basically to be an investigator.”- Grade 2, CSI Forensics

 “My child declared, at the end of the week, that she wanted to direct and produce film for a career. She will be able to transfer the knowledge and skills that she learned in the course to her own video making from now on.” - Grade 7, The Producers

 “Creating a business model was a first for my child. She gained significant knowledge of how a company operates. I was happily surprised to see that she extended her interest horizon with an open mind and gained business knowledge at such a young age.” - Grade 9, Entrepreneurship.