Monthly Report for February

Report from February 2014, written by Teacher Margaret

We have come to the end of February, which was also our mid-term break. The break started on Wednesday 26^th of February and ended on Monday 3^rd of March.

We did our mid-term evaluation exams and are happy to report that our children are doing very well academically despite their hard environmental challenges.

Food-program

The school revived the break time porridge for all of the children and they are always looking forward to break time. This meal has enabled children who used to come hungry to school to have a full stomach. Thanks very much to the partners who enabled the re-start of the program. The school had stopped the program due to the food crisis and the high prices of food which had affected the country. The lunch time feeding program is also on going though with challenges, but we hope to be able to provide lunch for all with minimal challenges.

Schoolmaterial

The school is facing some challenges in classes because some parents are not able to buy their children writing materials like: books, pencils, rubbers and sharpeners. Thanks to our friend Brit from Norway who bought some books. You helped put a smile on the childrens faces. Most of the children don’t have school bags to carry their items in and this makes their books to get spoiled quickly.

We are still waiting for the new school syllabus from the government which will enable the teachers to give holistic development to the children.

We are experiencing a shortage in the reading materials in our classes. This is because all the text books changed with the new political constitutions. We have been forced to buy new text books for all classes. The books are very costly and we have only bought one for every subject per class. The teachers shares the books with the children. We thank our friends from Norway who bought some number work books for children in the pre-school. Though they are in a different language, the mathematics in them is similar to what we learn here.

New academic acivities

We are working towards achieving the holistic development of the children through academic and co-curriculum activities. We have introduced: debating = where the students are given a motion(topic) to discuss (give advantages and disadvantages). One group supports the motion and the other group act as the opposers. For example we recently gave them the motion: “Village life is better than urban life”. Through such activities the children learn the communication skills and they also learn how to have confidence when addressing people. They also improve on their written and spoken language. Another activity that we have introduced is dramatizing or acting. The teacher comes up with a script and choose characters for the children. The play has to be in simple language and with educative background. Through this the children also improve on communication skills. More activities take place at the field where children play at the watchful eye of their teachers. They sing, jump, skip, clap, dance and throw balls.

Scouts club

We are planning on starting a scouts club in the school so that the children can learn important skills through the club. The clubs uniform costs a lot but after the club is in place we shall find ways of getting them for our kids.

 We have joined other neighboring schools and we will be joining them during games and sports. This will expose our children to what other schools are doing. We shall need play materials like balls, ropes, bean bags etc

This year we didn’t admit many children because we needed to have a number of children that we could cater for. We have now a total number of 40 children. On most days about 5 of them are absent from school due to either sickness or hunger. One of them as been out of school on the last two months because he fell and broke his leg and he walks with crouches on.

We have a volunteer teacher in the school whose name is Jacinter. This is an indicator that we are growing.

Happy Day Junior School invites any comment, advice and any form of help from any willing person. Your advice will help us achieve our goals and make the children better citizens of the world tomorrow.

Again we thank all our partners for your support. May you all be blessed.