Whole Child Model: Education, Health & Engagement

For over a decade School-to-School International (STS) has implemented and refined an approach that embodies our founding principle: In order for students to thrive, they must have their basic needs fulfilled. We have implemented activities from all three components of the Whole Child Model — Education, Health, and Community Engagement — reaching over 2,600 students in Guinea in the 2015-16 school year alone. Our program covers a broad set of interventions, including activity-based teaching and learning, a girls’ scholarship program, construction of school wells, quality health and wellness education, improved school sanitation, parent and community involvement, and empowerment of school management.

Since our last report in June 2016, we have reflected on lessons learned from our implementation over the last year to inform the design of our interventions in the 2016-17 school year. In addition, we are pleased to report that, by invitation from the Guinean Ministry of Education, STS’s National Coordinator in Guinea presented on STS’s pedagogical strategies and research to key education stakeholders in Conakry.

Teachers’ Skills Reinforcement Workshop

This year we completed our first ever teachers’ skills reinforcement workshops. These trainings aim to reinforce teachers’ mastery of the subjects they teach as well as their pedagogical techniques and familiarity with the curriculum. The STS/Guinea team reports that these reinforcement workshops were well-appreciated by teachers, directors and local administrators at the prefecture level in terms of both the academic and pedagogical competencies addressed.

Teacher Coaching & Monitoring

STS continued implementing our teacher coaching program since our last report. Our coaches provide continuous support and capacity building for teachers to guide their implementation of new techniques learned in STS’s teacher trainings. For the first time, we have included School Principals in this process, and will be comparing their observations with those of the STS teacher coaches.

Evaluation of Classroom Gender & Equity Trainings

At the beginning of the school year, we trained teachers in our partner schools on the techniques for creating an equitable classroom for girls and boys. During this training, teachers created personal action plans for how they wanted to tackle equity in the classroom for the coming school year. We revisited those teachers at the end of the school year to reflect on the implementation of their action plans. We will have a more concrete report once the completed monitoring tools have been scanned and analyzed.

Evaluation of Community Girls’ Education Action Plans

At the beginning of this school year, we worked with our partner communities to discuss the importance of girls’ education and community’s role in girls’ success in school. Following that training, each community created an action plan for supporting girls’ education. The community members came together again at the end of the school year to reflect on their progress over the course of the year.

Girls’ Scholarship Distribution

Through a grant from the Alcoa Foundation, STS selects primary school girls to receive scholarships based on need, academic achievement, and regular school attendance. This school year we have continued distributing scholarships to recipients on a monthly basis. The scholarships, in the form of a monthly donation of a 50kg sack of rice, directly impact the recipient girls and their families. We have also witnessed that impact radiate across the girls’ communities. We are very proud to report that 37 out of our 47 scholarship recipients were promoted to the next class. Two of these girls were top of their class, and 10 were in the top 10% of their class.

Since our last report, we have received a follow-on grant from the Alcoa Foundation that will support 32 scholarship recipients over the 2016-17 school year. STS will also continue to support 10 other girls in other schools during this school year. Through this program, we will also hold role model events intended to expose girls and boys as well as the broader community to the professional possibilities for women in Guinea. STS will bring together women who occupy prominent positions in the public and private sectors to speak in partner schools about their academic and professional journeys and the importance of education and empowering girls to pursue their ambitions.

Well Construction

Through a grant from the Alcoa Foundation, STS completed the construction and inauguration of one well at Katakody school. The well will serve as a clean water source for children and others in the community. As part of our new grant from the Alcoa Foundation, we will construct two wells over the next school year for communities in need.

• WCM Report: September 2016 (PDF)