Educational Capacity Building in Fiji

Dear Supporters, 

April 2017 saw the start of academic term two at Navunisea District School and Dawasamu District School. Staff and volunteers began working at DDS consistently again this term, as volunteer numbers rise permitting us to assist here while maintaining consistent support at NDS. This term volunteers supported targeted students in classes 2 and 5 at DDS as well as all students in classes 1, 3 and 4. At NDS volunteers could support targeted students in classes 1 - 8 Volunteers all teach a combination of small group Phonics and Literacy lessons as well as 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. Assessments were completed in January 2017 for every child at NDS and DDS, enabling the students to be grouped 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.

After the second round of phonic and reading assessments in April 2017, progress could be tracked at NDS, with a view to tracking progress at DDS the following term. All classes were examined, with most students showing definite signs of accelerated progress in their phonics ability - being able to sound out and blend to read words in Phase 2, 3 and 5. In Navunisea District School 91 children had their phonics level tested since January 2017. Of these students forty-seven scored a higher score in May than in January, thirty-six scored the same and eight students scored a lower score.

To help improve phonics progress GVI has been striving to:

• Track the number of lessons that each child is present for, by creating a tick sheet for each group's lesson planning book to be completed daily by each volunteer.
• Focus on blending the sounds that the students know to enable them to read more words
• Volunteers to continue to build a bank of interactive phonics resources to be utilised during small group lessons
• Children who were absent for one round of testing in either January or May will be checked in Term 3 regularly to ensure they are tested at least twice in 2017 allowing us to assess progress made throughout the year.

Reading assessments showed a slightly different picture, with some students making the desired progress but others either staying at the same reading level or moving back a level.

In Navunisea District School 88 students have had their reading level tested in both January and May 2017, allowing us to assess their progress made. Twenty-seven students improved on their level, thirty-three stayed at the same reading level and twenty-eight students dropped a reading level. Of these 28 students 14 are from Class 3 or Class 4. As discussed in the class analysis, some contributing factors to this may be that they are part of a composite class, they are currently being taught in a tent or due to different volunteers being responsible for the testing.

To help improve reading progress we will strive to:

• Track the number of lessons that each child is present for by creating a tick sheet for each group's lesson planning book to be completed daily by each volunteer.
• Focus on reading comprehension in small group literacy lessons, as children are scoring higher in phonics they are able to read but are struggling with their understanding of the words.
• Reading tests for class 3 and 4 will be carried out by the same two GVI staff members in Term 3 to eliminate the possibility of the test being assessed too harshly or too leniently.
• Children who were absent for one round of testing in either January or May will be checked in Term 3 regularly to ensure they are tested at least twice in 2017 allowing us to assess progress made throughout the year.

Based on the data from the end of term one, literacy and phonics groups were looked at again and altered when necessary. Some students who were pinpointed as failing to make progress were examined, and if deemed to be struggling in a small group were provided with 1:1 tuition instead, in the hope of seeing the desired progress by the end of term two.

Completion of the final assessments of 2017 were carried out in August, which has allowed us to assess overall progress to be seen for students from both Navunisea District School and Dawasamu District School. This provides invaluable feedback to the teachers and allows us to adapt and tailor our efforts to the needs of the students.

Thank you for all of your support!