Progress at last

I feel that finally things are beginning to take off on the work front. We have spent several more days at the school that we visited. At the moment we are working with the teacher of the KG2 class (5 year olds), as the KG1 teacher is about to go off on maternity leave at any moment.
The area we are working on at the moment is general class routines, expectations and positive behaviour management. The teacher has not been at the school for long, and this is the first time she has faced the challenge of having a class of mostly migrant students, many of whom speak very little Thai. She seems very appreciative of the support and ideas we are offering. She really wants to do a good job with the children, but just seems rather overwhelmed by it all at the moment. There is not much of a routine or clear expectations of behaviour in place, and as a consequence (together with the fact that many children do not understand very well), the children tend to be quite disruptive and the noise level is somewhat trying, to say the least!
As well as observing, we have started to do some activities with the children, to show strategies that could be used. The ukulele is a huge hit with them, and we have taught them a couple of songs. They also love "Susan" - a puppet I created out of various bits of packaging for playing "Susan Says".

Given the right sort of stimulus they are actually very attentive and eager to learn and participate, so hopefully, with the positive attitude of the teacher to change, we will start to notice some improvements.

Yesterday we had a meeting with the VSO Education Programme Manager and the officials at the local MoI office of one of the sub-district areas to discuss taking the project forward in pre-school Child Care and Development Centres (henceforth to be called CCDCs!) The meeting was very positive and we have the go-ahead for working in their area. The Chief Executive was all for me going and basing myself at their office and working with their Education Chief! She seems to be a very nice lady, and we will have to collaborate quite closely with her, but I think I'll keep my desk at WE!

 

L-R: My Coordinator; Me (note M&S shirt and trousers - Thanks Mum!!); VSO Education Programme Manager; Chief Executive of Sub-District Area Office; Administrative Chief; Education Chief; Assistant to Education Chief

Today we did the same thing at the other sub-district area office. The Chief Executive was not able to attend, but his 2nd in command chaired the meeting. (He was present at the meeting I attended in Bangkok in May on migrant education issues, and spoke very well about some of the initiatives in their local area.) Also present were teachers from the two centres. The meeting was made slightly challenging by the fact that in the next room there was a group of teachers who had come to visit from other provinces on a kind of teacher exchange, doing very lively activities involving lots of singing and drumming! We soldiered on, and it was another very positive meeting. I get the impression that this is quite a forward-thinking sub-district and that there is already some good practice going on, so we will have a good basis to start from.

We also went briefly to visit the centres. They seem to have a very pleasant, child-friendly atmosphere, and the children are sooooo sweet! So at last it looks as if we have a project we can really get our teeth into. The next step is to organise follow-up meetings with the Education Chiefs at the sub-district offices and then set up the initial observation visits to all the centres.

And finally, for the shoe-lovers out there, here is the latest pair:

These are my indoor flip-flops that I change into at school. They had to be photographed un-modelled to show them in all their glory!