Educate 50 vulnerable children in Sierra Leone

The new term started yesterday on the 8th January 2024, with students excited to come back after the holidays. Last term was a busy one with well repairs and new toilets completed (thanks to funding from Guernsey Overseas Aid).

At the end of October, 6 weeks of teacher training began at Maronka for Year 2 of EducAid’s Sierra Leone Education Innovation Challenge (SLEIC) project. This project works to increase literacy and numeracy outcomes for primary school children. EducAid’s Maronka school hosted teachers from 65 partner schools, with each week having trainings tailored for a different year group (Week 1 for Year 1 teachers, Week 2 for Year 2 teachers, and so on) to help teachers to build relationships and support networks with other local teachers and schools.

Each of the 65 primary schools in the project is served by a Cluster Mentor who visits each school weekly to collect data, observe lessons and provide tailored support and coaching to teachers. Head Teachers and school leaders then gather twice per term at Maronka to meet, share challenges and learn together throughout the year. One of the school leaders sent photos of students with dictionaries and said this about their Cluster Mentor, Adamsay at the end of October:

“We always thank EducAid for the new way of learning. A big thanks always to our cluster mentor Madam Adamsay for always directing us for the good thing to happen. Pupils actively engaged with their learning making use of the dictionaries to write down new words in their vocab books. I'm happy the teacher is going around to help them on the properly use of the dictionaries. EducAid thank you our pupils never use dictionaries before you come to our school but now they are using dictionaries to search for new words.” This shows the even larger impact Maronka has beyond Maronka village throughout the year! 

Last term was also full of exciting educational projects with teachers going the extra mile to create engaging activities for our Maronka students. For example - on Science Day Maronka teachers and students celebrated by building and learning about parachutes together (see photo below!). This new term, Maronka is welcoming a new primary school teacher to the team and EducAid is hoping to expand our early years classes over this next academic year.   

Thank you for your continued support of Maronka Primary School, which makes all of this happen. 

We are back to school at Maronka Primary! The new school year 2023-24 started on 4th September for all children in Sierra Leone. 

While children were enjoying their Summer break, we kept busy with planning for a new school year. Last May, the storms that took down Freetown’s iconic Cotton Tree did significant damage to the roofs at Maronka. We were able to do some temporary repairs in June to secure the buildings; however long-term repairs are more significant and require drier conditions. These repairs will begin this month as soon as the rains stop. 

Before children came back to class, we also organised the annual EducAid Whole Staff Meeting with all our staff from our five schools. This was a great opportunity to be together, learn, share experiences and set goals for the upcoming school year. By the end of August, we also started engaging families and communities in a back to school campaign to make sure no one will miss their first day of school. 

"(I am) embracing the new school year with excitement and curiosity, ready to learn and grow." Mayio, Deputy Head of School and Lifelong Learner

Welcome back everyone to the new school year!