Unity is strength…when there is teamwork and collaboration, wonderful things can be achieved.
~Mattie Stepanek~
Our reception class now has a purple dinosaur! This is what they are using to highlight purple learning and the children can already begin to tell me how they can get their names on him!
We have been exploring the Global Goals this week and discussing what we can do to play our part in ensuring the goals are achieved by the year 2030.
For the past two years we have campaigned for ‘Send My Friend to School,’ which is all about keeping leaders to task and reminding them of their promise to ensure all children will have access to free education by 2015. Yes, that is this year! There have been great strides taken to achieve this but throughout school we have learnt about the many individual stories of children who can’t get to school for one reason or another.
This week we have welcomed Elizabeth (Headteacher of Masekane School, Our Link School), Rosina and Ledlie, all educationalists from South Africa. They have come to visit both our school and Cholsey School to take back as much ‘best practice’ as they can. Working alongside the British Council, they will go back to share their research with as many other headteachers in South Africa that will come and listen. Already there are 17 other headteachers committed to learning from their visit, but they are hoping to spread the information even further. We are sending them back with as many resources as we can so that they can begin implementing changes that could impact their education system for the better. One aspect they are focusing on is our use of teaching assistants. Currently teachers have up to sixty learners in a classroom on their own. They hope to take back ideas of how to use additional adults in the classroom to provide intervention and further support for pupils. They want to push their government into providing tailored training specifically for the use of assistant teachers in their classroom. These women are on a mission to improve outcomes for all the children in their care. How amazing that we are such an integral part of this process!
Their visit coincides with our sharing of the Global Goals perfectly. Today in collective worship we talked specifically about Goal Number 4 – Quality Education for All. What a perfect way to support this goal in sharing practice across countries, all in an effort to improve education for all learners involved. We hope to reciprocate the visit in the near future and see what we can learn and see how we can continue to help support our link schools.
If you see Elizabeth, Ledlie or Rosina around school make sure you welcome them….Dumela!
You can watch the video about the Global Goals here:
