Bank Holiday, finalising the curriculum, training day and preparation for an onslaught on the resources room.

Monday was a quiet day. It was a Bank Holiday for Independence Day. I spent the morning blogging about the Way of the Cross in the shade on the khonde. Bhavna and I went for lunch at the home of an Indian businessman who I mentioned a couple of weeks ago. He had a very pleasant house with a beautiful garden containing some lovely mature trees. We met his sister and sat on the khonde overlooking the swimming pool, talking business and politics, both Malawian and British. Indoors we were served delicious vegetarian food, all home made. It was very civilised. On Tuesday it was back to work. I went up to JP II College to talk to the ECD trainer about my additions to the curriculum for ECD Diploma students. I answered her questions and reassured her about her ability to teach, or find others to teach different parts of the curriculum and to my delight we agreed that the curriculum is ready to send off to TEVETA in the first stage of being considered for accreditation. This is a major success and she has agreed to send it off by Friday. Hoorah! I then wandered along the corridor to find the registrar who is spearheading the preparations to affiliate with the Catholic University and pass on the news that we are able to start this process before we have absolutely met all the requirements listed in the guidance for the procedure. Rather to my surprise this also went well and he promised me that he would send me the draft letter by Wednesday afternoon. I decided to walk back to the children’s centre and set off down the road back into central Chilomoni. I know the main roads of the township quite well but I do not know the maze of tracks and narrow pathways that make up the central part between the bigger roads. I didn’t want to get lost off the beaten track so I set off to walk the longer way that I was confident I knew. I had only gone a few yards when who should I spy coming up the hill towards me but the Daycare Manager who directed me down a narrow, sloping path and over a rickety bridge into the aforesaid maze. She stopped a passing seven year old and spoke to him rapidly in Chichewa and then said goodbye, turned back to resume her own journey and left me in the care of the little boy. He did a good job and after a few twists and turns I spotted a direction sign for the Children’s Centre and realised I knew exactly where I was. I groped about in my backpack to find a small reward for the child and came up with a bag of peanuts which he accepted with a big smile. I set off for the last couple of hundred yards to find the Room Leader of the Duck’s Room walking towards me. The Daycare Manager had phoned ahead to say that I was on my way and if I was lost they were to find me! Such is the way I am looked after here! Everyone is very kind. Wednesday is training day again. This week I was talking about Play. I chose to talk about play because on my observation days in the rooms I felt that I saw more adult led sessions than opportunities for children to explore materials and consolidate their learning through child initiated activities, I wanted to make caregivers think about how they can influence children’s play and learning by the way they set up the rooms for the free flow play that appears on their timetables three times a day. We tried to define exactly what free flow play is, both definitions, we revised Tina Bruce and the 12 features of free flow play, we defined adult-led, adult-initiated and child-initiated play, we talked about Loris Malaguzzi whose famous quotation is displayed on the wall in the CC but which no-one could remember, and we planned room layouts to encourage child- initiated activities. I sincerely hope that some of it will rub off onto the way the caregivers operate in the rooms from now on! PS Loris Malaguzzi said: ‘Tell me something and I will forget, Teach me and I will remember, Involve me and I will learn.’ I repeated the workshop in the afternoon for the second set of students. I gave both groups a bit of a lecture about caring for the resources we have, cleaning them after use and storing them so that you can see what is in each box and access it easily. Tomorrow is the day set aside for sorting out the resources room once and for all. We have borrowed 12 Early Years students from JP II to help us pull out everything and clean and sort everything that is worth keeping. The Practice Leader has made a host of bright yellow labels for all the sorted toys. She spent this afternoon locating buckets and cleaning cloths, mats to keep toys clean on the packed earth surface outside the resources room, and anything else she can think of to make the job go smoothly. So think of us tomorrow attempting to make oder out of chaos and rediscovering good resources that have been trapped behind the broken and worn out. Fingers crossed we shall be able to do it all in a day!