Dear friends and partners,
Hear from one of our teachers.
"My name is Teacher Steve. I have been part of the teaching team at Acres of Mercy Learning Centre for the past one year. I started my teaching profession here and this has presented me with various opportunities to practice my teaching professionally.
I believe that teaching is not just about doing well academically but also involves growth in other areas. Doing this has seen his classes improve holistically over the last one year. The fruits I am seeing today have come about through teacher trainings, research over the internet as well as seeking help from colleagues to come up with solutions.
Being a teacher at Acres of Mercy has changed my view on discipline and learning. I have come to believe that a student does not have to be disciplined using the cane in order to learn. I have also come to embrace the importance of involving students in decision making (student engagement).
I have seen that settling issues of discipline by dialoguing with the students to come up with solutions is a good opportunity for teaching them life skills such as critical thinking. I have to model right character for them to grow. I also ensure that at the end of every lesson i encourage the students.
By doing this we see the students believing in themselves and stop seeing teachers as deities in the education world. Instead, it has made them open up and become more willing to ask for help in areas where they face challenges."
The support we are receiving is evidently yielding results and impacting the people who have the the power to impact our children positively, the teacher. In Acres of Mercy,a teacher like Steve on average earns $110 a month. Thank you.
Still this is way below what Public School teachers earn at an average $280 a month.
We would like to keep teachers like Steve by offering a better working environment, better training, and better wages so they do not have to leave when the Government's employment window opens. I would like to encourage you to invite frriends, other family to support our teachers so we d not lose them.
Thank you.
Dear friend and partner,
Happy Easter!
It has been an awesome first term! Our teachers are doing their best. We have been exploring some interesting approaches through our coaching sessions. Through February, we took videos to capture key elements in the delivery of quality teaching that captured teaching methods, classroom management strategies, teacher planning practices among other elements that we have been addressing during our coaching meetings. However, we are still on course to tie it with a professional development workshop in this coming month of April.
Between January and March, we focused on two things: -
As we continue with these initiatives, our challenge remains to attract the best teaching talent. Teachers who are able to learn and able to balance between maintaining certain structures but also accepting change and moving it forward.
What sort of teacher leadership both at individual level and at school level do we need? How can we train current willing teachers to embrace change?
The challenge for the school leadership is to move teaching/instructional transformations that will have the greatest impact on student achievement.
Once again, we ask for ideas and advice to push results and have greater lasting impact.
On behalf of the teaching staff, leadership and board at Acres of Mercy, I would like to thank you dear friend for getting us onto this journey. Thank you.
Easter Blessings
P.S. Could you make the call for us on our behalf for other friends to check out our other Project page and join us? Thank you
Dear friend and project partner,
2017 has been a year of growth and development for our teaching staff. Our aim with this project has been to ensure the students get quality teaching and learning from our teachers. You have ensured that this has happened throughout the year. As our project partners, you have ensured all the teachers have been motivated to come to school every month without having to worry about whether the paycheck will come in time, because faithfully and sacrificially you have ensured that happened. Thank you.
We invested time in coaching the teachers and mentoring them to ensure high quality teaching. In 2017, we focused on training the staff on Brain Based Teaching, Inquiry Based and other effective Instructional Strategies, Classroom Management Strategies, Competency Based Curriculum, and Growth Mindset.
The school had a teacher to pupil ration of 1:13. This is an average score. The class sizes ranged from 24 to 10. The school teacher population was at a constant 13 teaching staff. The support to these teachers yielded impact in the learning and achievement of students as could be seen in the Average Class and Subject Value-Added Scores and Attendance Score.
By the end of the year compared to October 2016, Average Value-Added Scores for 2017 for the entire school grew by 28%. The score shows how much a subject or class grew in achievement from the last assessment taken at the same time in the previous year. It assumes the efforts being put in by the teacher, parents, and students, and administration yielded the growth in achievement. The average school attendance score was at 84%, which can be roughly translated to mean that at any given time the school had 112 students attending class any given day, with the main reason for non-attendance being parents not taking responsibility to contribute their portion of tuition fees.
We found that the Value Add Score is a better motivator to teachers than the mean grade as it measures how much improvement students are making. This has helped teachers focus more on strategies to improve individual student achievement rather than improving class mean scores. It also achieved a key strategy that focuses on using data and assessments to improve teaching instruction and classroom interventions which will yield quality teaching.
At the end of the year, the teachers shared their best memories from 2017. Here are some of them.
“One of my best memories was when we went for a team building session accompanied by our students.” Grade 4 Class Teacher
“Guiding Learners in the dangers associated with pre-marital sex.” Counselling Teacher
“Improvement in Grade 4 Mathematics Achievement.” Grade 4 Math Teacher
“Participating with the students in the music festivals.” Grade 5 Teacher
“Seeing the learners develop interest and positive attitude toward mathematics.” Grade 8 Teacher
“Teaching students about road safety with toy cars and sound effects from a sound app. The boys enjoyed it. The girls loved it.” Grade 6 English Teacher
“Being given the opportunity to be Head of Academics. I was able to develop my skill in administration.” Head of Academics Teacher.
“My best memories were seeing children slowly by slowly take initiative in their learning and forge ahead without fear.” English Language Teacher
All this was made possible by your consistent investments in the teachers. We celebrate your successes in 2017. You both have made the year a success. One of lasting impact. Thank you.
On behalf of the teachers, the children and the Acres of Mercy Board, I wish you a great year 2018, one of success in all your endeavors and look forward to your continued support for much more impact in this year.
Dear friends and partners,
Since July our teacher coaching focus has been how to make learning more accessible to all students in our classes, and how to in ways make teaching more ambitious so our learning outcomes can begin to improve in the short term and most definitely in the long term.
We had a week of workshops and trainings by an expert teacher from the U.S. who was sharing different instructional methods on how to close student achievement gaps and reach all the students in our classrooms. Teachers had a great time learning about “High order questioning skills”, “Lesson Planning and Lesson delivery”. There were sessions on “habits of mind” and “Classroom management”.
The sessions had a positive impact on the professional stance of the teachers. These are reflections from a section of the teaching staff after taking an exit ticket.
“My most valuable take away from the training is the stations and group activities. That’s what I want to utilize with my students since I have realized that it is inclusive and the learners’ participation in the lesson is high”.
This kind of feedback is encouraging as implementation will mean that student engagement would be improving.
Another teacher remarked,” I am very much ready to implement the strategies that I have been exposed to- Progressive monitoring, using formative assessments.”
Yet another teacher declared,” Yes, I do feel prepared to try out looking for the positive in every child each day.”
With this kind of professional growth and development, we know we will begin to see improvement in the achievement of the school. And indeed, we are beginning to see this in improved students’ attitudes towards subjects like Math where students are testifying just how much they have been enjoying Math classes. Together we are restoring the joy of learning in the hearts and minds of the children.
Through our partnering we are seeing the restoration of the joy of learning back to school.
With 138 students we have a No Corporal Punishment Policy in strict enforcement yet discipline levels are unlike the public school systems. Acres of Mercy students are able to listen to instructions without external threat. The teachers are fairly motivated as they continue to receive their monthly pay on time. And weekly staff meetings are more about how to have a more enabling learning environment and how to design learning to reach the “jagged” learning profiles in class.
Thank you for making educational change happen.
Dear Friend and partner,
Yes...we are many steps closer to where our vision is driving us to. We have edged closer to more quality teaching..
The goal to build our students’ writing skills continues. In April we admitted Joe* into Class 6. Joe had been going to school at a public primary school in the local School District. Below is an excerpt of his current essay writing:
“One day I was walking in the road with my sister I saw a boy who was sleeping near the road. I saw a car caming. I told the driver to come and carry the boy. The driver refuse…”
Joe has a few problems compared to many boys his age. Teachers at Acres of Mercy are working to improve the children’s Comprehension, Accuracy, Fluency as well as expanding their Vocabulary.
There are many other improvements in key areas of student learning such as independence in learning, reading, writing and comprehension, curiosity in learning, handwriting, improving fluency in certain areas of mathematics as is being testified by some teachers;
“I have been here for about 5 months now and it is amazing what is happening to the students when we started working on developing their curiosity to learn; many of our Science students are now able to read and write their own notes without being pushed”
Teacher S. has been giving extra time to the students, helping them during every free period he has. And the fruits of his and other teachers’ dedication are evident in the way sections of students are approaching their learning, teachers’ collaborating and parents beginning to take greater responsibility for their children’s learning and education.
This work has definitely been possible by the giving support you give to ensuring we have the teachers’ salaries provided for in time. It is this sort of support that has shifted our preoccupation with survival to spending more time in teacher professional development and coaching.
“It is now easier to set targets, with teachers and truly, honestly expect highly of them because our focus has moved from explaining salary delays, to discussing more about how we can all improve our teaching and students’ learning”
Thank you for making this possible.
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