We have been in school now for 2 months and have made some
progress in all different areas of the school! We are happy to keep checking
off things on our school year to do list! Here is a brief overview of what we
have been able to achieve over the last 8 weeks!
>Each student in our school has access to at
least one pencil, pencil sharpener, eraser, pen, and exercise book. Each
teacher has received a class set of these utensils to ensure students have
everything they physically need to be successful in the classroom setting.
>Thanks to some generous donations we have
purchased new desks for every classroom in our school (KG1-JHS Form 1). There
is a carpenter in Asikuma that hand makes each desk and bench for our school.
He has already completed the desks for JHS Form 1. P6, P5, P4, and P3. He is
currently working on completing the regular desks and benches for P2 and P1.
Once these are finished he will start working on 10 round tables for our
Kindergarten (KG1 and KG2) classrooms as well as 60 tiny little chairs for our
pupils to sit in!
>Our teachers have started lesson planning!
Lesson preparation is so important, which is why we have stressed to teachers
that they need to be completing their Lesson Notes everyday for every subject.
Although some of our teachers are having a little trouble with the format and
concept of planning a lesson before teaching the lesson, they are trying!
>We meet with out teachers outside of school
twice a month for professional development. This time is so important for our
school staff. It allows for us to
check in with our teachers and it gives them a time where they can ask
questions, share their comments and concerns with us. We love talking shop with
our teachers and demonstrating different techniques for them. So far we have covered
reading strategies, how to teach vocabulary, time management, and classroom
management. We will continue talking about classroom management at our teaching
seminar this week since there is so much that can fall under this topic!
· >Since we started the seminars with our teachers
have slowly started to incorporate these techniques into their classrooms! We
have seen our teachers start using informal assessments, think-pair-shares,
preteaching vocabulary, using key sentence frames, adding visuals on their classroom
walls and adding them to their daily teaching, bringing in things like sticks
and stones to use as a math manipulative, taking multiple student answers to in
class questions, having students collaborate in small groups, and bringing in
TLM (Teacher Learning Materials) that help to enhance their lessons and their
students understanding.
>Each child who lives in the mission center has a
uniform to wear to school everyday! This may seems like an easy task, but I
assure you it was not! Before we arrived in August someone had donated money to
make uniforms for the children who were currently living in the mission center,
which is amazing! Since we have had so many kids join us at the mission center
we were short a handful of uniforms. People are probably thinking why didn’t
you go to the uniform shop and just pick up a few more uniforms? It is not that
simple here. In Ghana each school has a different uniform, our uniform was
designed by Wisdom! So each uniform is hand crafted for a certain child. This means
that a seamstress has to travel to the mission center and take a series of
measurements for each child’s top and bottom piece of the uniform. Someone then has to travel to Accra to
gather the fabric and materials for the uniforms. Each step of this process
takes time and money. The seamstress visited the mission center yesterday to
take the last batch of measurements and grab the two rolls of cloth to make the
Kingdom Cares Community School uniform.
>Finally we have completed the addition onto our existing
school structure. We added a new structure with two classrooms to support the
P6 pupils and house our new JHS Form 1 program. JHS stands for Junior High
School and Form 1 would be the first year in the program. There is also JHS
Form 2 and JHS Form 3. Building this structure allowed us to better meet the
needs of the students we currently have in the school program as well as
expanding who our program can reach.
Although their seems like a never ending list of things to
do on a daily basis it is important to take a step back and look at the big
picture and what we have initially accomplished. Not all of these things were
the first on our to do list these are all things that needed to be done along
the way. Like we said from the very beginning being flexible is very important
in any school setting, but in the Ghanaian school system especially. Mary and I
have had to shift our focus on what we are doing in the school a few times
based on new challenges that have come up along the way. Here are some of the big things that
Mary and I are currently or constantly working on.
>We will continue observing our teachers on a
daily basis. We watch the different teacher’s methods as well as how they
engage/interact with the students. We also hope that by being in the classrooms
on a constant basis we will make sure the teachers feel like the are valued and
supported within the school setting. This also gives us a chance to answer any
last minute questions they have and grab any last minute supplies they might
need such as a white board marker, colored chalk, a chalkboard ruler, etc. What
we see in the classrooms also help us to pick the topics of our next seminars.
> My good friend from Iowa who has been to Ghana a
few times contacted us a few weeks back asking about the whiteboard situation
in our classrooms. He visited the mission center in August and noticed that
only two of our classrooms have whiteboards. The rest are still using
chalkboards, which for the most part are big pieces of plywood covered in black
paint. He generously donated money for each of our 10 classrooms to get a large
whiteboard. We are currently working with Wisdom to get the whiteboards
purchased and installed in the school!
>We are also in the process of getting class sets
of textbook for each grade. The tricky thing is each subject has a different
textbook. The nice thing is once we have purchased the textbook for the subject
you can use that textbook for multiple years. The first subject we are
purchasing for each grade is reading. We feel that reading textbooks are the
most beneficial for students to get their hands on. It is easy for students to develop misconceptions about print
if they never have a chance to hold a book and explore all of the print
details.
>When Mary and I first came to the KCC School we
had planned on creating a new curriculum for the students. We quickly learned
that this was not an option since our school has to report to the GES (Ghanaian
Educational System) even though we are a private school. The GES supplies each
school with a syllabus outlining what the students need to learn for that subject,
thus dictating what the teachers need to teach. The school had also already
purchased a series of textbooks that aligned with the GES syllabus. So what Mary and I have started working
on is creating and compiling a set of standards for each subject and grade that
outlines what each student will need to know by the end of the year (similar to
that of the Common Core). We will be looking at the syllabus supplied by the
GES, the textbooks, and the Basic Education Certificate Examination. The basic
Education Certificate Examination is what the students will need to pass to
continue their education in Ghana. If a student does not pass this exam they
will not be permitted to move on in the formal education system.
> Finally Mary and I will continue to teach
lessons in the different grades and subject areas. Sometimes we teach because
a specific teacher asks us for help on a lesson and sometimes we teach for the
enjoyment of teaching!
Please continue to follow us on this journey and
share what we are doing. We are always more than willing to answer questions or
give more information. If you feel compelled to make a donation or support the
school in some other capacity please either email us at kccschool15@gmail.com or visit Kingdom Cares
International.
Peace and Blessings,
| Anna |
We have given our teachers a survey to ask about what areas
they would like training in. In addition, we make daily observations and rounds
at the school that we use to make notes on common struggles or challenges the
teachers are facing. We are looking for areas that all of the teachers could
improve on. Once we have identified common needs, we begin to develop our
seminar around those one or two topics. For example, we have covered topics
such as how to teach vocabulary in a meaningful way and effective ways to teach
reading/English. 
Anna and I will be talking with the teachers about the
importance of consistency both in regards to following the timetable and
discipline. We will be providing them with a list of productive things they can
have students do when they finish an assignment early, such as reading a book,
math facts, writing a letter. The seminar will also encourage teachers to shift
from negative reinforcement to positive reinforcement for discipline. We will
discuss the benefit of setting up rewards, such as an extra break or no
homework pass, if students are doing what they are supposed to. This will
hopefully eliminate the need to discipline if students are motivated by
extrinsic factors. Small details too such as the teacher separating problem
students and moving around the classroom will help minimize problems before
they arise. Most of these techniques are things that seem like no brainers to
trained teachers, but may be concepts these teachers with no training never
would have considered. 
It is our belief that in order to truly improve learning at
this school it is going to have to come from the teachers. The material being
taught does not matter if it is not taught well. Therefore, Anna and I continue
to be excited by the growth and the effort we are seeing the teachers make and
are excited to see how this will impact our students. We will continue to
identify areas of need and provide as much support and as many resources as we
can to support our teachers and students.
