Early Childhood Development Initiative

Ba Futuru Preschool Quarterly Report 2022 

In January Ba Futuru preschool enrolled 43 children; 39 children are active, and 4 children have moved elsewhere.   

9 children are full time students. 

6 are from theSeroja Community. 

24 are fee-paying children. 

Boys: 20 and Girls: 23.  

We have two classes operating; Sprouts class is for children aged 2-4 and our Explorer class (transition to school)is for children aged 5-6.  

We currently employee, 6 teachers and 1 cleaner/cook. 

Term 1-Settling, Discovering Self and Identity  

We welcomed our new and existing familiesand children and settled back into our preschool routines. Our new children have been exploring our fun and educational environment with curiosity and are beginning to develop a sense of well-being and belonging in their new surroundings. Our children have been exploring self and identity throughsharing family photos, stories and self-portraits and family representations through art. We all learn and share together and build up stronger identities and relationships with each other. 

Self-Regulation. We delivered a comprehensiveprogramme on self-regulation. Children learnt about emotions through being able to label emotions and self-regulate in appropriate ways. We revisited our good friend programme, which reminds children how to play like a good friend. 

Ba Futuru Preschool Attributes.We have 10 attributes that nurture skills, knowledge, positive attitudes, dispositions and behaviours.  

This term,our teaching and learning programme has focused on 3 attributes.  Friendliness,Team Work, and Resilience. I believe our children have a good understanding about these attributes as children are able to nominate their peers who they see doing things in these three areas. 

Transition to School Programme (5 year olds)  

Our teaching and learning programmefollows the Jolly Phonics Programme.We have been using this programme for over 5 years consistently and it deliversgood solid results, as all our children learn to read and write before starting primary school. Thisconsists of children learning the alphabet letter sounds and actions, through singing and moving.This term our children have been learning to practice the first 12 alphabets soundss, a, t, i, p, n, c, k, e, h, r and m.We also practice to form the letters correctly in the air and then on paper and make a craft dedicated to each letter. 

Children also practice their reading skills through learning to sound out an early reader book for 5 minutes each day, one on one with a teacher.  

Montessori and Play Based LearningMathsProgramme 

We continue to explore different ways of learning maths. Our children are all at different levels of maths learning, therefore we cater lesson plans to the individual’s skill level.Currently we are focusing on one-to-one correspondence, sequencing, unit measurements, shape, addition, patterns, and classification.  

Place Based Education (P.B.E) Exploring ourCommunity.  

What’s happening in our larger Dili community? These experiences enrich our children, through gaining knowledge about the place that they live. We use these experiences as a foundation for learning more about language, art, maths, science, and other subjects across the curriculum.  

Thisterm our excursion took us to the Nun’s Bakery our neighbours.  We are invited every year and it has become an annual excursion. Our children get the opportunity every year to experience a commercial kitchen and its operation.  The nuns choose a different food experience each year for our children to participate in making.  This year it was making a cupcake and decorating it and of course sampling it, YUM, YUM.  Because of COVID, we have limited our excursions to only one a term.   

Teachers’ Professional Training 

We had afull day refresher session on our curriculum framework.  We focused on what we want to nurture in our children through teaching skills, knowledge, positive attitudes, dispositions and behaviour through these 10 areas.Leadership, Friendliness, Team Work, Resilience, Health, Explorer, Guardian of the Earth, Creativity, Empowerment, and Building Relationships.  

We discussed what’s going well in our new documentation and writing a narrative report in the form of a learning story, and what teachers are finding hard about this documentation.  The teachers that are more skilled with writing and using the computer are mentoring the teachers that are still learning these new skills.   

The teachers have had a Montessori Maths refresher course with Mrs,Lolita from Sri Lanka who is Lecture in Montessori.We appreciate her refresher maths courses that she has delivered over the past five years.  

• Ba Futuru Preschool Quarterly Report 2022 - 1 (PDF)
  

This term we enrolled 31 children, 5 of those were full time, 10 were from the community and 21 were fee-paying children.

Boys: 10 Girls: 21

Settling and Identity Learning:  We welcomed our new families and children and settled back into our preschool routines after comeback from lockdown.

We continue teaching our activities about self-regulation, Ba Futuru Attributes, gardening, Maths programme, physical movement, and Literacy programme for 5 year olds.

E Learning Programme started 19th August to 20th September 2021 due to lockdown.

Teaching and learning through WhatsApp and Zoom classes

Teachers learn to make fun, interactive videos, for our children who are learning from home. Teachers have learnt quickly the new skills needed to produce a good quality and professional engaging teaching and learning video. We have been able to produce 3 to 4 videos every day. We have had very positive feedback from parents and children are very happy. Teachers also prepare a worksheet package of activities for our transition to school programme children weekly.  Content of Learning: Our calendar time/mat time, maths and science, arts and craft, games and songs, stories - audio, teacher read and puppet story), physical movement games.

 Teachers’ Professional Training

 All teachers completed their Ba Futuru teachers’ assessment/professional development checklist and met with the coordinator to discuss the indicators and next steps. There was a lot of discussion around the curriculum framework, particularly our new attributes that we are fostering. Documentation and writing a narrative report in the form of a learning story, was highlighted for most teachers as needing support with their writing skills and using a computer.  

Preschool Event 

On 15th to 19 November 2021 teachers – parents’ conference

On 26th November 2021, Preschool will celebrate the end of year concert, graduation. 

We appreciate your support and we could not do this amazing project without your generosity. Please share this report with others and encourage them to provide financial assistance if they can.

Thank you!

We enrolled 30 children, 4 of those were full-time, 10 were from the community and 18 were fee-paying children.

Boys: 12 Girls: 18

Term 1 and Term 2

Settling and Identity Learning:  We welcomed our new families and children and settled back into our preschool routines. We learnt about identity, through our new “Me Sheets “and had discussions and activities.  This strengthened teacher’s and children’s knowledge about our “Ba Futuru family community”. Parents were invited and got involved through sharing with us their cultural foods.

Self-Regulation.  We delivered a comprehensive programme on self-regulation. Children learnt about emotions through being able to label emotions and self-regulate in appropriate ways.  We revisited our good friend programme, which reminds children how to play like a good friend. 

B.F Attributes. We introduced our 10 Ba Futuru attributes that nurture skills, knowledge, positive attitudes, dispositions and behaviours. These areas are Leadership, Friendliness, Guardians of the Earth, Creativity, Explorers, Team Players, Empowerment, Health, Resilience and Building Relationships. 

Montessori Maths Programme. We continue to explore different ways of learning maths.  Our children are all at different levels of maths learning, therefore we cater lesson plans to the individual’s skill level.  Currently, we are focusing on one-to-one correspondence, sequencing, unit measurements, shape, colours, addition, data, patterns, classification and subtraction. 

Transition to School Programme-5 year olds. This consisted of revisiting the alphabet letter sounds and actions delivered last year through a Jolly Phonics Programme. Children also are practicing their reading skills through learning to sound out an early reader book for 5 minutes each day. We also send early reader books home twice a week for children to practice this new skill with their parents.

E Learning Programme starts 09 April 2021 due to lockdown.

Teaching and Learning Videos through WhatsApp

Teachers learn to make fun, interactive videos, for our children who are learning from home. Teachers have learnt quickly the new skills needed to produce a good quality and professional engaging teaching and learning video. We have been able to produce five to six videos every day. We have had very positive feedback from parents and children are very happy. Teachers also prepare a worksheet package of activities for our transition to school programme children weekly.  Content of Learning: Our calendar time/mat time, maths and science, arts and craft, games and songs, stories - audio, teacher read and puppet story), physical movement games.

WhatsApp Video Call

Video call with all our children and parents, four times a week, to connect and give support.

Teachers’ Professional Training

All teachers completed their Ba Futuru teachers’ assessment/professional development checklist and met with the coordinator to discuss the indicators and next steps.  There was a lot of discussion around the curriculum framework, particularly our new attributes that we are fostering. Documentation and writing a narrative report in the form of a learning story, was highlighted for most teachers as needing support with their writing skills and using a computer. Because of the lockdown teachers have had to learn on the spot how to use new technology through producing video classes and learning the skills of editing and how to engage in front of the camera. 

Ba Futuru's Teaching Coordinator, Betty Fatima, who has been working with Ba Futuru's Early Childhood Development Initiative has returned to Timor-Leste and will be once again leading this initiative.

Betty received a scholarship to go to New Zealand for 9 months to study early childhood education, now that she is back she will be sharing these immense learnings with the staff at Ba Futuru's preschool. While in New Zealand Betty worked in various Kindergarten and primary school transition classes. In 2021 Betty will be working to apply the innovative strategies that she learnt about phonics and the new attributes/values curriculum. 

Ba Futuru is currently reaching out to the Dili community for enrollment for the upcoming term. We greatly appreciate all your support that makes this initiative possible. 

Even with the global pandemic, Ba Futuru Pre-School Teachers have continued providing learning through play opportunities with their students. In Timor-Leste, the government enacted a State of Emergency in March, which temporarily closed schools. Ba Futuru’s Pre-School followed suit of the rest of the world, and moved their classes to online learning. Every week, teachers sent videos to students that focused on home-based play learning. Students loved the videos, as they were personalized videos from their teachers. About a flower experiment (as seen here), one parent said, “Thank you so much! The flower in water experiment was a hit. We had to do 5 or 6 flower opening up experiments and each time it was accompanied with ohhs and aahhhsss”