UK Teachers adopt “Tiger” as mascot!

  Across the past couple of weeks our team of five teachers from Haverigg Primary and Black Combe Primary schools have been working on turning The Big Curriculum into a 6 day programme of teacher training for next April. We will report in the next few days on the final schedule.
The team, led by Head teacher Helen Webber, comprises Mel, Jen, Chris and Pete and one of them recently decided to spice up their meetings a little by turning up dressed as something associated with Nepal! She could have chosen to come dressed as a mountaineer, a yak, or even the mythical yeti ……….. but in the end her choice was …….. a tiger, an endangered species in the Terai plains of southern Nepal. Very appropriate!

P4C.com supports Nepal Schools Aid

We are currently in full swing now preparing for next year’s teacher training conference programme in Kathmandu which will cover three specific areas, Educational Psychology, Teaching Tools & Techniques, and Subject Teaching (English & Maths). In addition however we will have another programme for Head Teachers initially to build on the skills and tools we gave them this year to create a vision for their schools and an improvement plan to meet the new government directives. This programme will focus on Values in an attempt to influence them even further about becoming more child centred in their approaches.
The Values Programme will begin with teaching and discussion about values and their impact on attitudes and behaviour generally before exploring the need for values based education within their schools. At this point we will introduce them to the techniques of P4C using the expertise of our UK teachers who are expert practitioners.
To extend the implementation of P4C in our 7 schools we have been searching for a source of materials which are accessible and appropriate for use by our Nepali teachers. This search led us to the website P4C.com and after an exchange of emails we were offered free access to all the materials for use in our schools (worth hundreds of £££) by Steve Williams which is a magnificent gesture.
So, a big thank you to Steve and P4C.com

Bath school conquer Everest for Nepal Schools Aid

A report in the Bath Chronicle today describes how Beechen Cliff School organised a fundraising event to raise money for us which must rank as one of the strangest ways ever to "conquer Everest". Organised by House master Lee Sumsion, one of our late son's closest friends the event involved 23 laps of the Alexandra Park school completed by 120 boys of Shakespeare House, at one stage carrying an egg on a spoon, with nutritional needs catered for by burgers at "base camp". Sounds like it was fun and you can read the full story here

Nepal education to benefit from "The Big Curriculum"

There are times when we create or stumble across something that really excites us or motivates us, and one of those times has just arrived. Since our pilot training programme in Kathmandu last April we had been scratching around trying to get assistance to develop a comprehensive curriculum for delivery over three years, and sometimes the best help is sitting right under your nose. In this case it was Janice, the Head Teacher at Haverigg Primary school, who worked with us over a couple of weeks to create what we now refer to as The Big Curriculum!

The Big Curriculum is organised into two major sections, one for Head Teacher Training  and one for Teacher Training. The overall goal is to improve the quality of education in our supported schools and this is underpinned by a philosophy of child centred learning approaches.

The Head Teacher programme focuses on a number of aspects of leadership including Vision, Values and Performance Management. Delivery will be via short workshops and action learning to ensure implementation.

The Teacher programme is organised into three sections with delivery being extremely varied and ranging from courses and short workshops to in-school coaching:

• Educational Psychology-Concepts & Theories
• Teaching Tools and Techniques
• Subject Teaching (mostly English, Maths, Science)

Obviously these headings are broken down into topics and this now leads us to the next stage; dividing the whole thing up into a syllabus for each of three years beginning in April 2011. We are close to achieving this now which will allow us to begin planning logistics in Kathmandu such as venues, delegate nominations and a detailed timetable and schedule.

In the last few days we have had meetings with our groups of volunteers from Haverigg and Black  Combe schools in South Cumbria to match individuals to the first year's syllabus which now enables them to begin their preparatory work to deliver "The Big Capability Programme" next April!