One of the many things I always miss about the Malawi experience is the chance to sit and take in the beautiful views from the Kabula balcone. That, combined with the usual excitement from the table for the day ahead!
I can’t believe it’s Wednesday already… Gill and I headed off to Ntenjera TDC today. The road to this rural school is a very bumpy one. The journey is always interesting as the streets are aligned with the usual goat meat vendors, carpenters, welders, the odd pool table thrown in, as well as the little stall selling home made chips.
As we reached the TDC, the sun was beating down and we knew today was going to be a hot one.
Gill and I had the TDC set up quickly (we have this down to a fine art now) and we then grabbed some pictures of the TALULAR scales, the bin made from recycled bottlers and the shopping corner which were all on display around the room. All more great examples of our Malawians colleagues creativity and innovativeness when it comes to teaching and learning.
The HT and PEA then took Gill and I round to a Standard 6 Maths lesson.
Over 100 learners sat on the floor with their exercise books as the teacher taught them perimeter. I grabbed a wee spot on the floor beside some learners as they worked with a partner to complete their work. It was wonderful to see such rich dialogue between the learners as they worked out their answer together.
From there, we made our way back to the TDC. Ntenjera has so many learners that many classrooms are permanently outside. Learners sit on the floor with some wooden shelter to shade from the sun.
The session was opened by our good friends and MLOLs, Regina and Loveness. They are both PEAs and have both been to visit Scotland in previous years with the MLOL charity.
They talked fondly of their memories with Sharon, Maureen and Tom and spoke of their visits to St Denis’ Primary and Hyndland Primary.
Both ladies were an incredible asset to our session today and I felt inspired working with them.
Our focus for part of the session was on well planned lessons, from the Malawian standards. Colleagues loved learning more about the good lesson cycle and we used many strategies shared throughout the session today. Colleagues loved the use of Think Pair Share to discuss what they would see as senior leaders if they were conducting lesson supervisions.
They than had time to create their own poster evidencing the features of well planned lessons. There were so many ideas displayed in different ways, another great example of how we can encourage our learners to demonstrate their understanding in creative wags. Colleagues spoke about the importance of developmental steps and self evaluation. This helped promote rich dialogue between the leaders.
We then explored aspects of self evaluation and improvement and used post it’s to share something they have led and the impact it had made on their school and learners. Some identified how they had conducted TLCs and measure the success by including aspects of this in the criteria for supervisions, whilst others spoke about how they promote teacher wellbeing through incentives for good practice - gifts from the headteachers!
Record keeping is key in Malawian quality assurance and many shared how they record aspects of CPD to evidence what has been implemented and the impact it is having.
It was then on to a rendition of MOTO MPIRI MOTO! - Fire on the mountain. We used this for our Mix Pair Share activity and Loveness (PEA) led the singing and moves beautifully! As she shouted ‘Wazima,’ we split into groups to discuss the actions of an effective leader. We had responses such as a role model, high standards, kind and compassionate, solution focused and someone who uses statistics.
We were having so much fun and engaging in rich dialogue we nearly forgot to come back in. By this point we had gathered a wee crowd around the outskirts . Ntenjera is a very busy school and has even busier grounds. Villagers cut through to access the water, the local graveyard, church and maize crops.
In between the break, Gill and I went for a stroll around the grounds. We met a family with a young boy in wheelchair, who was being supported around the school. We spoke to some teachers and began to draw a crowd of little Standard 1 and 2 learners who proceeded to follow us around the school grind, even in our way back to the TDC. We said goodbye and Zikomo before heading back into the TDC for the next session.
Colleagues then had some debate around their highest improvement priority and used the diamond 9 strategy to do this. There were many colleagues who felt their quality assurance procedures were a high priority for improvement, which led nicely into the last part of our training session,. The POLLI tool is always something that is highlighted by colleagues and something they can take and use in their own schools and classrooms. Aspects such as the coaching model and lesson supervisions are already in place in many schools and colleagues shared today how it was wonderful to then have a template to support this and record through their paperwork.
As we drew the session to a close, we were delighted to have a read through our practice pledges. It was wonderful to see things such as ‘Encourage teachers to use POLLI when they face challenges in order to improve their practice.’ and ‘I will continue to look for opportunities to improve my leadership skills’.
It’s easy to see why so many of our colleagues would like more input from the training.
The activities are proving to be successful, with lots of positive feedback around how colleagues can utilise parts of the training to improve their school and improve themselves as a leader.
Regina spoke of how she had a PEA meeting the following day and would be taking the POLLI along to discuss. I’m hoping we find out how this went at our final closing meeting on Friday as I know she was buzzing about it as she closed the session today. ,
Her closing words were very powerful and pertinent to our work as MLOLs… ‘United we stand, divided we fall.’
Zikomo x
