Educational Capacity Building in Fiji

Dear Supporters, 

August saw the start of the final academic term of 2017 at Navunisea District School. The volunteers support targeted students in classes 5, 7 and 8 as well as all students in classes 1, 2, 3, 4, and 6. Volunteers all teach a combination of small group Phonics and Literacy lessons as well as whole class PE, Music and Art and Craft lessons.

To enable volunteers to plan and teach effectively, as well as monitoring and tracking progress of the students targeted, GVI carry out reading and phonic assessments at the beginning of every term, the results are collated and used so we can group the students alongside similar ability students, which assists volunteers with the planning of differentiated phonics and literacy lessons. By completing both reading and phonic assessments with some students, GVI can easily identify their individual current learning goals and plan to meet these.

Between the months of August – November the Education Project Leader has been developing a range of resources to help volunteers plan and teach quality literacy lessons.  The resources are categorised into activities that support students' understanding of; Vocabulary, Grammar, Spelling, Comprehension, Composition and Punctuation.  As the majority of GVI's education volunteers are not trained teachers, the resources are beneficial when they first begin to plan and deliver literacy lessons.

Since the start of term three the resources have been in place in the Learning Centre at school.  They have been well-used already, with volunteers adapting each resource so they can be used with a wide range of age groups and abilities.  Inspired by the success of the first activities, volunteers have even started contributing by making their own resources which supply activities not yet created.

Another aspect of the new bank of literacy resources is resource packs for particular story books in the GVI library at NDS. These packs offer a range of activities and games, which are all based around the content of a book.  The aim is that volunteers will be encouraged to focus their literacy lessons on a particular book for a longer period of time; increasing the children's comprehension and level of understanding of central concepts to the story. We will be continuing to add to our resources in 2018.

In the last month of term, we have focussed time on demonstrating the work we have been doing at school.  Our main focus was to show parents and teachers a more in-depth account of our Education Project, methods of teaching and progress monitoring process.  We feel this is important as parents are not always aware of what and how we are teaching their children and teachers do not always have the time to thoroughly talk about how our project is progressing and evolving.  The students who attend Navunisea District School come from three nearby villages: Silana ,Nasinu and Nataleira. We held four showcases; two in Silana village, one for the teachers and one for parents residing in Silana; one for parents in Nasinu village; and one for parents in Nataleira village.

We divided our Education Project into four main topics, therefore our showcases consisted of four different areas, each summarising one of these sections.  In addition to Phonics, Literacy, Assessment and PEMAC (Physical Education, Music, Art and Crafts) which each had their own stalls.  A volunteer and member of staff occupied each display and conversed with all attendees about their given topic.  We introduced the showcase outlining our goals and objectives for our Education Project.  Attendees were then invited to visit each section where GVI members were ready to explain their topic, show examples of work we do in the primary schools, play short educational games with parents to demonstrate the exercises their children perform at school and ensure any questions parents may have were answered.  It was extremely gratifying to witness how involved and interested parents are about our project. 

The Education Project Team are looking forward to 2018 and working together with the teachers of Navunisea District School to help improve the students understanding of English and to encourage them to foster the love of reading. 

With Gratitude, 

Fiji