Feed A Hungry Mind

The school year ends when the primary schools close on Friday 14^th December. Everyone is exhausted and in need of the long holiday. The new school year starts again on 14^th January 2013.

The last three months have been busy and productive, and the work carried out has very much paved the way for the full programme that we will be running next year.

Barbara Kerr, our primary school teacher with over 33 years of experience in Australia, started working with us in August. Since then she has been instrumental in organising and planning mini in-service sessions (Insets) for teachers of mathematics which are conducted by Barbara and David together. These are now held twice a week in four schools, and provide an opportunity for the teachers to discuss difficulties and share ideas, and tap into Barbara’s experience of teaching mathematics. The mini Insets are now a key feature of the work VEPK undertakes in the primary schools in Mabogini ward.

Having gained a good insight into the WSD programme’s objectives in early-mathematics, David and Barbara started collecting data in order to help teachers and other educators to see progress and to plan for future seminars and mini Insets in schools. Data obtained by both VEPK and by education officials is being used to give a measure of the impact of our work, and also to provide detail from which to guide our work in schools. The data will help us to identify overall needs, and to show progress, and so will help to ensure that our work is as effective as possible.

In September 2012 Jill Nash joined the programme. Jill is also from Australia, although originally from England. Jill was so enthused by her three-month assignment that she will now be returning twice each year. Jill has worked for three months in Benjamin Mkapa primary school to assist the teachers in their teaching of English as a foreign language. Jill very soon noticed the lack of any support to the teachers from the text books. In the classrooms Jill observes, and does partake in some team-teaching. However, Jill’s vital work is outside the classroom when she can guide each teacher on improvements which could be made to the lesson, and give ideas for putting the language in a context that would make it relevant and memorable for the pupils. Jill started sessions for all the teachers of English to sit with her and to work on difficulties of teaching, and also for Jill to take them through grammar structures etc. to improve their English. These sessions were so popular that not only did they increase from once to twice a week but also all the teachers in the school requested to be able to attend.

During Jane Fith’s visit in September she conducted two workshops called ‘Chatter Matters’ for parents of babies and young children from the neighbourhood of two primary schools in Mabogini ward. The parents – with men comprising about a third of those attending each workshop – were very keen to help their children. They had little knowledge about how children develop, and so understood little of the play activities that were suitable for helping ‘motor’ skills, thinking skills and speech development. After many activities in the seminars the parents understood that they had an important role to play in their children’s development especially before they go to school.

These ‘Chatter Matters’ workshops were very popular and all the parents who attended asked for more training and help. Jane intends to run more of these seminars next year.

The three maths books which Jane has written to guide teachers in the teaching of basic mathematics to pre-primary, Standard I and Standard II classes, are now ready to be printed. This has taken time as the translation into Swahili had to be checked carefully, and the layout/designer worked closely with Katy Allen (a fluent Swahili speaker) to ensure that page-breaks are suitable and all the diagrams are correctly labelled and in the right place!

In the last quarter VEPK commissioned Mr Mkiramweni and Mr Lusingu of Singa Chini Teacher-Training College to write a handbook for school committee members, so that they can be guided in their roles and responsibilities. This has been printed and will be distributed to schools in Mabogini ward and elsewhere in the new year. 

We have achieved much in 2012, and with new long-term professional volunteers committed to the projects we should go from strength to strength in 2013.
Our work is not possible without funds, and with the economic difficulties in the UK and inflation in Tanzania we are ever ‘cutting our cloth’ according the funds we receive.

We thank all of you for generously supporting our work and enabling our projects to flourish and develop.

A very merry Christmas to all our supporters, and we hope that 2013 will be a good year for us all.

Very best wishes

Katy

Katy Allen

Director

Whole School Development Programme  - September report 2012

Tanzania’s primary schools re-open on Monday 10^th September after an extended holiday because of the national census which took place in August. The Standard VII end-of-primary national examinations will be held on 19^th and 20^th September, and the schools will close for the year on 14^th December.

Jane Firth visited again in July and gave a seminar for the School Inspectors from Moshi Rural District. The seminar was to show them Jane’s teaching methods for basic mathematics, and how all her activities, materials and resources relate to topics in the national syllabi. The inspectors enjoyed the demonstrations and certainly gained confidence to be able to assist teachers during future inspections. This is a crucial step in ensuring that teachers using the new methods are fully supported.

Also in July Dr Anne Samson returned. Anne held another seminar with the Inspectors of Schools for Moshi Rural District and the tutors from Singa Chini Teacher-Training College. The major focus was on ‘participatory’ teaching and assessment. This meeting, following on from two previous ones, was conducted with an Inspector from the Zonal Inspectorate office for the North-Eastern Zone. The seminar developed further the discussion of how best to assess pupils’ work. With the emphasis now being strongly on ‘participatory’  teaching methods, the old methods of assessment (written exercises and tests) can no longer be the only assessments of work. There was much healthy discussion and many questions, but also agreement that new methods of assessment must be allowed in the primary schools. Anne wants to develop , in a future seminar, the understanding of ‘participatory teaching’ which itself would lead to a greater understanding of how to assess the pupils’ learning.

Anne also found time in her visit to sit with the head teachers of the eleven government primary schools in Mabogini ward to talk to them about our Whole School Development Programme and whether they have seen any benefits or improvements. The teachers all agreed that the benefits to date had been enormous. The management training for head-teachers, and the training for some school committee members had helped the running of the schools and the understanding of the duties to be performed. The training in teaching basic mathematics had had the greatest impact, with teachers enjoying their work, pupils turning up because they enjoy using the materials/resources, and other teachers wanting to teach the younger classes, and seeing the benefit of the use of resources. This was most encouraging for our project, and in particular for our current follow-up work where we spend 4 days a week in schools to support the use of the new methods.

Katy Allen and Dilly Mtui have made two visits to Dar es Salaam, mostly to promote the English course books for teaching English in government primary schools – the NOEC. They met the newly appointed Commissioner for Education at the Ministry of Education & Vocational Training and had a very positive discussion about the use of the NOEC books. This was coupled with meeting Zonal Chief Inspectors of Schools in Arusha and Dar es Salaam and getting their commitment to study the NOEC books and give feedback on the need for them. A very good meeting with professors from the Education Department of the University of Dar es Salaam promises to lead to a workshop in November.

Katy and Dilly continue with their columns in two national daily newspapers: The Citizen  and Mwananchi. Katy has a weekly column in the Young Citizen which appears in the Sunday Citizen. These articles incorporate printed stories and comprehension questions from the NOEC and are aimed at a young audience . Dilly has a weekly column in Tuesday’s Mwananchi (a Swahili daily and also the best selling newspaper in the country). Dilly’s column has a serious commentary on the teaching methods used in the books, and also has a weekly quiz in the form of a short story with a cartoon and questions to test and show the many words in Swahili adopted from English. The columns are to promote the NOEC books, and several emails have been received by readers ranging from interested parents keen to get the NOEC books for their children to those interested in the work that we do in general.

Barbara Kerr joined the project in August, and Jill Nash has also just joined for a three-month assignment. Barbara will be working in the primary schools in Mabogini ward with teachers of mathematics from Standard III to VII. Barbara will help to extend our mathematics programme beyond Jane Firth’s work in Standard I and II, and  will be delivering seminars on top of her core work as a teacher-mentor in the classrooms. Jill will be in Benjamin Mkapa primary school in Mabogini ward helping the teachers with their teaching of English.

Our website has been updated, and the new Facebook page (linked from the Home Page of the website) has regular updates on our work where you can stay in touch with week-to-week activities in the project.

The donations which come through Global Giving are mostly anonymous, and so we are unable to write personal ‘thank you’ messages to those donors. We are very grateful to receive such generous gifts and hope that those who give towards our work know how much we rely on those donations to continue with our work, and how very grateful we are for them.

With many, many thanks to all our donors for their kindness in helping our Whole School Development Progamme.

Katy Allen

Director

8^th September 2012