Education Sierra Leone Project #40172

Educate 50 vulnerable children in Sierra Leone

by EducAid Sierra Leone

Educate 50 vulnerable children in Sierra Leone

Project Report | Sep 20, 2022
2021-22 Highlights from Maronka Primary School

By Erin Northey | Chief Executive

Learning on the 1st Day of School

EducAid Maronka Primary School

Located in the Port Loko District, EducAid’s Maronka Primary School is EducAid’s only model primary school, serving 100 students in 2022 including 57 students who call Maronka home. Maronka first opened its doors in 2003 after land was donated by the local community. Today, Maronka is a model school and teacher training centre for EducAid’s school improvement work at primary level. In 2021-22, this included 60 schools across the 6 northern districts (Karene, Port Loko, Kambia, Tonkilili, Bombali and Koinadugu), serving more than 20,000 students. Teachers and school leaders at these schools were trained and came together at Maronka to work towards improving their schools and teaching with Maronka, a village school that looked like their own, as a model In 2020, Maronka Primary School was one of 100 schools from around the world chosen for the inaugural World Education Week Showcase. In 2022, 11 boys and girls from Maronka’s Eagles Class sat their NPSE (National Primary School Examination) with all 22 students passing for an enviable 100% pass rate.

Highlights of 2021-22 Year

Maronka staff and students participated in the Global Climate Action Project and has worked to become a greener school, engaging in tree planting activities around the school and in the Maronka community.
Maronka teachers painted numbers on buildings, stairs and trees to engage student in more active maths lessons around the school, strengthening numeracy and math confidence in a fun, accessible way. Developing more literacy and numeracy teaching strategies and games was highlighted by all Maronka teachers as an achievement for the 2021-22 school year.
Maronka’s Sports Day is always a highlight of the school year for students, staff and the surrounding community. This year was no exception with a range of athletic competition that included: football, ludo, balance ball, track and field events, skipping rope, volleyball and hand tennis. This year’s Maronka Sports Day was observed by two members of the Fab Inc team – international development specialists with a key interest in education who work closely with the Sierra Leonean government. Maornka community members prepared the field and helped to organise Sports Day activities.
Maronka teachers helped to development Ubuntu safeguarding stories and toolkits for use in not only Maronka, but in schools across EducAid’s projects.
All members of Maronka's 2021-22 Exam Class (Eagles Class) passed their National Primary School Exams - a 100% pass rate, one of the highest in Port Loko District

Maronka plans for 2022-23

Construction of new toilet facilities that includes 4 student toilets, 3 staff toilets and a staff washroom (Guernsey Overseas Aid WASH grant).
Maronka QEP Teacher Training Centre to continue to be used and developed as an important meeting space and training centre for EducAid and the education sector in Port Loko and Freetown. 2022-23 uses will include:

o Training Centre for EducAid’s Sierra Leone Education Innovation Challenge (SLEIC) project. The SLEIC is the first and largest outcomes-funded investment in education in Africa. EducAid is one of 5 providers working to improve the quality of primary education in SL in 65 schools. This will improve the education of more than 22,000 children.

o EducAid’s PDIA (Problem-Derivative Iterative Adaptation) team will continue to support problem solving in and across Port Loko district, joining the PDIA in Education Systems Course run by Harvard University.

First Day of School - 5th September 2022

Maronka opened its doors to the 2022-23 school year on 5th September, please do have a look at the video of students beginning the school year.

Sports Day at Maronka

Learning at Maronka

Fun at Maronka

Interactive Maths at Maronka

Links:

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May 24, 2022
An Exciting Spring Term at EducAid Maronka

By Aruna and the EducAid Team | Maronka Deputy Site Coordinator

Literacy Lessons at Maronka

We’ve had a busy term at Maronka, with students and staff working on various projects both inside and outside the classroom! In class, Maronka students have been working hard on improving their literacy skills. In younger classes this has been working on phonics - putting sounds into words, forming words into simple sentences and also playing phonics games with words for lower classes. In older groups, students have been working on essay writing and creative writing, including writing EducAid Stories.

The students have also been making great progress with their numeracy skills working on addition and subtraction, and playing numeracy games. The team have also introduced learning packs for the students in literacy, numeracy and science to develop their independent learning.

Activities haven’t stopped outside of the classroom either - in March, we held Sports Day. Students, teachers and spectators from the local communities came together to watch the impressive sporting achievements of our Maronka students. They ran, jumped and raced showing fearless determination, and a great day was had by all!

Maronka's Eagles Class of 11 girls and 11 boys sat their National Primary School Exams. The children were nervous, but excited. The girls from the Eagles Class have been having #IAmAWoman sessions to learn how to support and look after each other as they get ready for secondary school in September.

As we are coming into the rainy season in Sierra Leone, the team are working on several new projects around the school. Firstly a tree planting project has been implemented to replant trees both in the school grounds and the local area. The students have been thoroughly involved in this, looking after the seedlings and planting in the areas they live to help encourage reforestation and respect for the environment.

One of the Maronka teachers studied public health at school and has been working with the students on best hygeine practices that can be shared with their communities this summer.

Learning Outside at Maronka

Clearing Hurdles at Maronka Sports Day

Maronka Sports Day Race

Links:

Attachments:

Maronka Eagles Take Their NPSE Exams (PDF)

5 Attachments

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Jan 25, 2022
News from Maronka January 2022

By A.R Couralis | Communications and Fundraising Officer at EducAid

Happy New Year to our Maronka supporters! Since our last update, some great achievements have taken place at Maronka and we are really proud to share these with you:

Maronka’s Site Coordinator, Aruna has reported that the last few months have shown us some impressive impact with notable improvements in English levels, numeracy and general literacy. Both students and staff have been speaking more comfortably in English; in and out of the classroom, and their reading and writing skills have greatly improved. Changes have also been made in other areas of learning. Students are actively stepping up to take more responsibility for their learning. Student safety is a priority and a respectful learning environment continues to be maintained across the whole school. We’ve also been working hand in hand with the local community, who have been more involved and helping to collaborate with the running of the school.

At Maronka, there have also been advances in equality - with students and staff reporting that now in the school there are more opportunities for collaborative learning such as mixed groups and pair work, confidence building, and learning outside the classroom. Both girls and boys are seen to be more confident in presentations and reading aloud. We have been making sure that Every Voice truly Counts within the school (EducAid prides itself on its EVC / Every Voice Counts way of working). The team at Maronka has been getting creative about student learning, and making it fun! See the photos below from the Hummingbird Class where students are learning together through play:

At the start of the academic year, some of these students started with very little numeracy and literacy skills. Now they can identify phonics sounds and numbers, form words from the phonics sounds and both write and speak English. So in all, some tremendous achievements and we are excited to see developments for the upcoming months. Thank you for your continued support!

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