Working in schools

This term, Geoff is doing what is called School Performance Review. I visit a school with a Ugandan colleague and we spend the whole day there, looking at lessons and the leadership and management of the school, feeding back to the headteacher and staff and writing a report detailing the strengths and recommendations for the school. When you say it like that, it sounds like an OFSTED report, but I believe that it is much more as we build an ongoing, relationship with the schools we work with. My Ugandan colleagues call it ‘supportive visitation’, which sounds lovely. We visit them regularly, provide training courses for them and the day itself is a process that involves a lot of conversation about where the school is compared to other schools and how management and teachers can improve the teaching and learning for pupils.

The Ugandan colleagues we work with are called Co-ordinating Centre Tutors (CCTs) and they are outreach workers for the local teacher training college. They are all very positive people and they carry out lots of training of school staff in their centres, so are glad to have the opportunity to visit the schools in their areas and spend quality time there. They all use motor bikes and give me lifts to and from the schools. Working together also gives us the opportunity to share skills so that the process can be sustainable when I leave.

I will usually do the leadership and management part of the process, as speaking to the headteacher, chair of School Management Committee (like our governors) and chair of the PTA can be done in English. I have started doing some of the lesson observations which is very interesting, especially as the younger classes are taught in local language. However despite my initial concerns, I was pleased to find that it is easy to tell a good lesson, even when you do not understand the language it is delivered in, as it is obvious if the children are engaged and learning and the teacher is good. The teachers’ English is good enough to allow feedback after the lesson although I mainly do the older classes.

A report is provided comparing the school with similar schools in the district and we will go on to hold a School Performance Appraisal Meeting later on in the term – commonly called a SPAM by my Ugandan colleagues. I always snigger slightly as I show my age by thinking of Monty Python every time! This is where all those from the school community are invited to a meeting to discuss the strengths and recommendations, decide on the school priorities and draw up a School Development Plan. We then will support the school as it tries to implement the plan.

So it is basically OFSTED with all the bits I didn’t like taken out and all the bits I wished it had, put in!