We are thrilled with last week’s closing workshop following a series of cluster-based trainings. In our partnership with School-to-School International, we invited 40 participants to the Joshua campus. These were mainly teachers from 6 different schools but also included district education officials and quality assurers from the Arusha District Council. During this one-day workshop our focus focused on the implementation of ability grouping and peer coaching in the 6 participating schools where we had trained.
The participants were super keen and readily shared what worked and did not work in their schools. It was very encouraging hearing positive stories from participants where ability grouping had been implemented in large classroom settings. Here we are talking about 180 students in one classroom!
A typical crammed classroom where we do training
Our main takeaway from the workshop was there had been big changes in teachers lives and teaching since we started training them. Most of them have become very confident and aware of what constitutes good teaching methods in their particular context.
At the end of the day participants were given opportunity to write down their opinions of our training. Their responses were very encouraging. Here is what some of them wrote:
“This reflection session has been very helpful; I have learnt a lot from my colleagues and this will allow me to improve what I should do in my classroom.”
“This was one of the most in-depth reflection workshop sessions I have ever taken. I was able to look back and pull-out things that I will need to improve in my classroom when using ability grouping.”
“I truly enjoyed the workshop. I am encouraged to try out what worked in my colleague’s classroom but did not apply in my own class!”
In her closing remarks, The District Education Officer, thanked participants for their commitment in the program and the one-day workshop. She especially thanked The Joshua Foundation and School-to-School International for their continued support of the 6 host schools. She urged teachers to share the knowledge and resources from this workshop with other teachers and students at their schools and to use the materials to cascade the results.
Again, we express our appreciation to School-to-School and other global partners who have made this one-day training possible. We will keep you informed of other upcoming in-service teachers’ trainings as we are looking to expand the program to more schools in the Arusha region.
