Support Teachers to Educate 200 Children Monthly

Dear friends & partners,

There has been so much going on with the teachers as we have worked on the school in the last six months!

We have had some amazing staff working tirelessly during this time. The outreach program into the community to share what we do as a school was entirely organized and implemented by the teaching staff and volunteers. The result has been an increase in enrollment.

We also had professional development sessions after the Art Therapy Session in January.

These sessions were organized to give teaching staff a deeper understanding of the Competency-Based Curriculum in Kenya. A follow-up session on Competency-Based Assessment will be done to ensure teachers fully understand how to implement CBC in everyday classroom activities.

 Our Deputy Headteacher attended a training session on Refereeing Soccer organized by the Ministry of Education via the Sub County Director of Education as well as a Kenya Private School Association/SPRIX Ltd-organized Mathematics workshop in July training on the role of ICT in mathematics instruction in the CBC context.

 All teachers of English attended a synthetic phonics training session using Fast Track Phonics resources developed by Eagles English Ltd. This was targeted at helping the teachers become better at literacy instruction at all levels of instruction. Our goal is to incorporate subject-level literacy instruction at all Grade levels. This was further strengthened by an online Montessori course attended by four members of our teaching staff.

 We plan to have a team-building session with staff at the end of October or early November to celebrate the year’s successes. We are also working on a Teacher Appreciation Day that will recognize outstanding instruction and teaching with a Learning Facilitator of the Year Award. Teacher motivation remains a critical aspect of ensuring we retain quality teachers so we deliver on our promise to provide quality education to learners on an ongoing basis.

Teachers have appreciated the support from the school management. As one teacher remarked:-

“We do not take the support you give us for granted. Without it, we are unable to help these children achieve their best.”

 Another Teacher responding to the support received in teaching literacy said:-

”These strategies that you have been helping us work on will bring good results to the learners.”

Teachers appreciate both formal and informal professional development sessions that bring visible results within their classroom environment.

 To do this we will need to cushion teachers against rising inflation costs and to give a competitive remuneration. Thus far the support you have provided as partners in this work has enabled some of these strategies to be implemented. We ask for ongoing support to ensure the most important factor in children's educational achievement, quality, motivated teachers.