Feed A Hungry Mind

The primary schools are now closed for the mid-term holiday, and resume on Monday 11th April.

In February Jane Firth returned for another assignment with us. This time we started work in schools in a different education ward, but still within the district of Moshi Rural. Mabogini ward is west of Moshi and we worked in the cluster of primary schools under Chekereni teacher-resource centre. During our preparations we met all the headteachers and briefed them about the work that Jane would be undertaking with their pre-primary class teachers and the teaching that we hoped the teachers would adopt after the seminar. One of the headteachers was concerned that she would be unable to monitor her teacher if she did not know the contents of Jane's seminar. For this reason Jane happily gave a one-day seminar for all the headteachers. Then for four days Jane worked with the pre-primary teachers on how to teach basic mathematics to their pupils, how to evaluate their progress, how to organise groups and group work, as well as a very lively session on story-telling in the classroom. For the remainder of her stay, Jane visited teachers in Marangu with whom she has previously worked and observed their progress and gave hands-on help where necessary. Jane will return in July.

In March we hosted our fourth workshop with District Education Officers and Chief Inspectors of Schools from the seven districts of Kilimanjaro region. This was held in Boma Ng'ombe in Hai district and, as last time, was facilitated and led by two trainers from the Business School of the University of Dar es Salaam. The topics covered in the three days ranged from managerial communication, building relationships and team-building, to conflict management and leadership and emotional intelligence. The fourteen participants, mostly newly appointed to their posts, enjoyed the workshop and the interaction and the opportunity to sit together and discuss problems in their work. They all requested another such workshop but to cover five days instead of three!

In the coming months we are holding a training seminar for headteachers in Chekereni, Mabogini, and Dr Anne Samson will be visiting to assess the progress of the programme and to plan its next stages.

Again, we would like to thank our donors for their support of our long-term work in the primary education sector.

31st March 2011