Looking Back on the Last Week

Already it feels like I have been here a long time. I have met a surprising number of people who remember me despite the fact that of the 70 students I trained only 5 are still working in the CC. One is Daycare Manager, one is Practice Leader, one is SENCO in the Outreach Team, one is Room Leader in the Eagles, and the other is a Senior Care Giver. Many of the others are still working with children and are spread across Malawi. Around Beehive there are many more people who were working here twelve years ago and are still here. This includes a few people from tailoring,and notably the cleaners from the CC, a few of whom worked at Mitsidi when I was here before. These last have welcomed me with open arms quite literally. On Tuesday one of them was wearing a dress I gave her before I came home. I think she wore it just to show me that she still had it. It was in beautiful condition and she said that she loves it. As far as work is concerned the key people for me are the Director of the entire Educational side of Beehive, the daycare manager, the manager of the Outreach Team, the ECD Trainer who is part of John Paul 11 College, the Practice Leader in the CC and the Registrar of the College who is chairing the committee looking in to accreditation of the ECD courses. I have already had at least brief meetings with all of these but there still is so much I need to know, so I will have to schedule more once I have worked out exactly what I need to ask. I spent the last two days of the week in the two younger rooms of the CC and will spend next Thursday and Friday in the 3-4s and 4-6s. These observation days are to inform my assessment of the training needs of the CC. The rest of this week will be taken up with the preparation and delivery of a training about the management of challenging behaviour for the first session of the CPD programme we are putting together for the whole CC. Fortunately this is a subject i have taught before so I am not starting preparation from the beginning! I actually completed planning and writing the presentation this morning, which leaves tomorrow for ironing out any IT presentation problems and getting my handouts printed ready for presenting to two groups of CC staff morning and afternoon on Wednesday. How did I decide what subject to start with, I hear you ask? Well, a few weeks ago at home I devised a questionnaire for all CC staff about what training they would be interested in. I intended to distribute this when I arrived but I told the Daycare manager about it and she was keen to distribute and collect it in so that I would have the results on my arrival and she was as good as her word. I spent a long afternoon and evening last week putting all the information on a spreadsheet and analysing what the staff think they need. I came up with a list of the subjects that were mentioned the most. This list is of course not necessarily the same as the list of what Senior Managers feel that their staff need and it is undoubtedly true that our schedule of CPD for the next year or so will end up including some of each. Of the potential CPD short courses offered the top scoring 9 were: 1. Positive Management of Challenging Behaviour 28 Expressions of interest 2. Long, Medium and Short Term Planning for Children’s Learning 25 3. Creativity 24 4. Getting What you Need Out of Interviews and Meetings 22 5. Building Self-Confidence in Young Children. 22 6. Working with Children with Special Needs 20 7. Making Mathematical and Numerical Learning fun 18 8. Learning through Storytime 15 9. Children’s Sleep 14 On Sunday I spent the day with the ECD Diploma class at JP11. This was a delight. I was happy to see both the ECD trainer and the Daycare Manager teach, with very different styles, and the students joined in with songs and games with enthusiasm and hilarity. I was given five minutes notice that I had 20 minutes to introduce myself to the students which was a little alarming without any prep time, but it went off quite well. We played 'I sit in the grass with my friend' as an attempt for me to learn and remember some of their names. Competing for the empty chair with enthusiasm led to a couple of prople ending up on the floor, although noone was hurt, but this proved to be a useful example for the afternoon, when we were considering Health and Safety and Risk Assessment! The morning session was a series of student presentations of ECD theorists which were of varying quality and entertainment value! Enough of work, what about about fun and relaxation? It gets light here about 5.30am and dark soon after 6.00pm. Our working day starts at 7.30am and ends at 4.30pm. There is not much daylight left at the end of the day for getting out and about. I set my alarm for 6.00am and there is time for a shower and a leisurely breakfast before setting out for the CC. Being in the classrooms with the children can be enormous fun and watching the children and Care Givers dance and sing is always a delight. Once back again in the evening there is usually an hour or so to review and sometimes write up the day's work before I have forgotten important details. Supper is at 6.30pm. By the time we have eaten, lingered over the dinner table reviewing the day and putting the world to rights, and cleared up the kitchen, there is not a lot of time for anything else if we are to be properly rested before rising at 6.00am next day. Nonetheless I have been out for two meals since I have been here, one with Bhavna the first weekend, to Veg Delight an Indian, vegetarian cafe where we enjoyed dhosa, pani puri and chai. David and I used to run away here occasionally and do our lecture prep over a large pot of Mzuzu coffee, and finish the visit with dhosa for lunch, so this was a pleasant trip down memory lane. This Saturday night we went to Hosteria and had pasta and icecream, and a couple of Greens, to the accompaniment of an excellent band. We had a quiet morning on Saturday doing domestic tasks and enjoying the garden at Mitsidi. I have particularly enjoyed the vervet monkeys who sit on the backs of the chairs on the khonde as if they owned the place! There was a kingfisher in a tree a little while ago while I have been writing this. After lunch Bhavna and I went on a massive shopping trip. It has been cold recently and she has been here for sometime and has no warm clothes, so we went to PEP (second-hand shop) to buy her a winter wardrobe. We went to various chinese hardware shops in the search for bins, towels and other odd items for Mitsidi; to Shoprite for cheese, and another supermarket whose name I forget for other groceries that were cheaper there, and then on to the market in the middle of Blantyre for fruit and vegetables. We arrived at dusk with quite a long shopping list and made our way into the tightly packed lanes of stalls with almost every fruit and vegetable you can think of laid out for us to choose from, some on mats on the ground and some on makeshift counters. It turned into quite an adventure as the light fell very quickly and we had to resort to using the torch on Bhavna's phone to light the way so that we did not fall over on the rough ground. Everyone was very friendly and keen to make a last end-of-the-day sale, although Bhava does drive a hard bargain! We made it safely out and back to the car with our loot and set off back to Chilomoni and Mitsidi. We just about had time to unpack everything before it was time to leave again for Hosteria and the pasta with prawns and creamy tomato sauce. Today is a public holiday for the funeral of the Vice President. After completing my presentation prep I went for a walk to Sigregge with Vince. This is the next village down the road past Mitsidi but since I was here last they seem to have run into each other. There is an extensive street market here also, fruit and veg, fish, fabrics, clothes and so on. We came back over a back way, away from the tarmacked road where we were waved at and greeted in the usual way, everyone friendly and cheerful. We were approached by only one person asking for money and one guy who invited us back to his house but we politely declined. We might have accepted if he hadn't so obviously been drinking! Home for lunch and an afternoon on the khonde writing this. So there we are. I have at last caught up with my blog. Hoorah!