Nursery school at Ntcheu

It seems such a long time since I last wrote anything! Indeed it probably is the longest interval ever between posts. However for most of it I have been very busy being on holiday and having a good time. This entry is going to be about the things I did shortly before my son Jack arrived for a visit and then the plan is that he will write about what we have been doing since he arrived. We have had a few days being tourists and now are back in Chilomoni and he is meeting the people I know and getting to know a bit about my life here in Chilomoni.

On Sunday afternoon, ten days ago Vince, Chaliza, David and I set off in a Land Rover to visit the Sacramentine Sisters in Ntcheu who run a nursery school which I have heard variously described as 'Beautiful' and 'The best nursery provision in Malawi', so we thought it would be a good place to go and see. The convent is tucked away behind the BP garage in Ntcheu just off the M1 main road. It is an oasis of calm just behind the busy trading area that is the main street of the town. The nuns have beautiful, solidly built facilities which are a huge contrast to the more typical Malawian buildings which surround it. I imagine they must have had an Italian architect and used lots of imported materials. They have paid a lot of attention to the finish and it is a lovely place to be. We were warmly welcomed by Sister Leonia and Sister Milcha (not sure how you spell this, apologies if it is wrong!). Chaliza and I had a long room with three single beds in it and curtains patterned with 'Bad Rabbit' which seemed a bit anachronistic. David and Vince had a room in another block across the courtyard. Sister Milcha is Kenyan and is in charge of the nursery school. Apparently the Kenyan Government gives a much higher priority to Early Childhood Education than many other African countries. While we waited for the evening service to be over and for the dinner to be ready she told us about the nursery which caters for about 350 local pre-school children. She said it was supposed to be for children from 3 years originally but parents have begged the nuns to take younger children as they feel their little ones will be safer there than at other local provision and now the youngest child is about 15 months. The children arrive from about seven o'clock for an assembly at about seven thirty so we arranged to meet to go down to the school at about five past seven after mass and breakfast. Dinner was taken in the dining room, a long room with three tables, one laden with serving dishes which emanated delicious smells into the atmosphere, one which was filled by a group of novices in blue and white checked dresses and a long one for everyone else including us, seven sisters, a visiting priest who was 'having a holiday' with the sisters and an Italian girl in her early twenties who was an artist staying with the sisters for a few months. Conversation was warm and interested and the food was terrific. There was chicken, pasta, pumpkin leaves cooked with tomatoes and onions, and, Oh Joy! there was a huge dish of leeks and green beans covered with melted cheese. Dessert was fresh fruit, golden bananas and mangoes from the garden.

In the morning the others went to Mass and I had a little wander round the garden. The sisters grow vegetables and maize and cassava as well as many beautiful flowers including a hibiscus with huge orange blooms. There were a few goats penned on the grass under the fruit trees. We all met up for a breakfast of bread and fruit and beautiful espresso coffee brought in specially from Italy. What a lovely treat! Then we walked down the hill to the school. By the time we got there many children were already there and were forming lines outside the building. The boys wore pale blue polo shirts and blue shorts and the girls yellow shirts and blue skirts. For some of the little ones the outfits must have been bought with growth in mind for some of the skirts almost brushed the floor. After a while the teachers began to encourage the children to 'march like a soldier' and the lines of children went into the school marching and chanting 'March like a soldier, march like a soldier' as they went. The entrance hall opened into a big hall and the classes went into their places and sat down in long rows on the floor. Even the tiny ones knew where to go and settled on the floor in more or less straight lines. There were one or two tiny ones who got up and wandered about, but very few. Sister Milcha stayed near the door and greeted latecomers and shepherded them gently towards their classes. Assembly began with songs and brief prayers followed by a succession of activities demonstrated by the teachers and then done by individual children selected by the teachers to come out to the front and show what they could do in front of the whole school. For example the teacher placed large cardboard cut outs of the numbers 1-5 on a low table and asked children to come out and pick out a specific number. I think they must have known the children well as everyone selected was able to get the right answer. The whole school joined in calling 'Well done, well done' while the successful child waggled their hips to the rhythm of the chant and beamed at the whole school. One of the teachers was asked to do the task blind folded, which she did successfully and then one or two of the older children were called up to follow suit.

The assembly lasted for almost an hour. I was astounded that the children sat still for so long. Whether they concentrated sufficiently to get much out of what was going on I am not sure. Certainly the older children were more engaged than the younger ones. After assembly Sister Milcha showed us round the school. The building itself was magnificent and in some ways reminded me of the pre-schools I saw when I visited Reggio Emilia, but the approach to practice was miles away. In all classrooms except the baby room the children were seated at desks in rows and the lesson was conducted from the front of the room by a teacher who relied heavily upon using repetition and learning by rote. If children repeated their lessons well they were given warm praise and the chorus of 'Well done, well done' could e heard from every classroom. Little children stood at the front of the class with their hands on their hips and waggled their bottoms enthusiastically, but did they understand what they had been taught? Were they able to place it within the context of other things they had learned? The answers to these questions I have no way of knowing from such a brief visit. I spent most time in the baby room where one teacher worked hard to keep upwards of twenty babies entertained all by herself. There was a high shelf of toys, well out of the babies' reach. A few children were playing with soft toys and cars. I later found that David had reached the toys down for the children when he was in the room before me. I witnessed one or two tussles over toys, but nothing that could not have been sorted by gentle intervention and bringing a few more items down from the shelf. The teacher was doing a sterling job, singing, chanting, bouncing a ball around. By the end of the day I should think she must have been exhausted and hoarse! In this room the tables were arranged around the edge of the room. The babies were mostly on a carpet in the middle but a good few were under or behind the tables, either playing with a toy or peeping out and watching the teacher or the other children. Many sat quietly for the whole time I was there. I got down on the floor and played 'Round and round the garden,' 'peepo!' and so on to responses ranging from disinterested, to anxious, to enthusiastic, to laughingly responsive.

In one room of three and four year olds some work was neatly displayed on a sort of wire frame on the wall. The children had done their lessons on tiny scraps of paper not unlike lengths of the strips of paper that we sometimes use for making borders for displays in the UK. There was a set of pictures of balls that the children had drawn and coloured. Most were simple attempts at circles which were then coloured in, but some had markings such as you might find on footballs or tennis balls. The work was tiny. With my background in supporting children with special needs I would be giving children of this age sheets of A3 paper, or bigger if I could, but even this relatively rich setting, resources are very limited and must be made to last as long as possible.

Sister showed us some of the exam papers. Even the tiniest children do an exam at the end of term. All the papers we saw were either simply colouring such as the music and movement exam which involved colouring pictures of instruments etc, or employed techniques such as linking similar shapes with a pencil line. David asked how the staff explained to the children what they were supposed to do as they were too young to read the instructions, but the sister did not seem to understand his question.

We saw the children have their cups of porridge at break time. They sat in a beautiful dining room at long tables. They were expected to eat before they were allowed to talk to each other. Sister said that this rule is necessary in order to ensure that every child eats their share. A small side room had a weighing machine. Each child is weighed monthly to ensure that they are growing properly and getting enough to eat.

We saw a small 'sick bay' room which included the only beds we saw on our tour around. Children arrive at about 7.30am and go home about 3.30pm but I saw no facilities for rest. At 9.00am one little boy was fast asleep with his head pillowed on his arms on the desk in front of him while the chanted lesson went on around him.

The teachers spoke gently to the children and were on the whole encouraging and positive but the lessons were dull and repetitive. I did see one group of about ten children make a bid for freedom and run through the dining room door into the garden and climb on to the roundabout when they should have been waiting for their peers to finish their porridge! No one noticed until David pointed out they had gone and then they were gently but firmly returned to where they should be!

I left with such mixed feelings. The provision here is so much better in so many ways than the small nurseries that are the local alternative. The children are well fed and well cared for, the school building is beautiful, but as far as the educational approach goes it is miles away from the way I have been trained to expect and encourage in the UK. In Chilomoni our brief is to train care givers to encourage the development of creative problem solvers who will think for themselves and become new leaders for Malawi, and yet the Ministry of Gender etc is telling us that our training must fit in with 'Things here in Malawi'. But I am getting slightly ahead of myself. I'll tell you about that next time.