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