First CPD Training Day Completed

Yesterday was Managing Challenging Behaviour Training Day. I put together a training that was designed to help Care Givers to understand that children’s behaviour that challenges is best considered as a form of communication and if we are to understand where it comes from, and what we should do to help the children to find a better way to behave, it helps to think about what they are trying to communicate. Also we looked at how behaviour escalates and what are the best times in the development of the behaviour to intervene when children are not too distressed, and therefore able to learn from the experience. I shamelessly cribbed some of the slides from a presentation I used to use when I was working for a children’s charity in the UK and added some from my own experience, and some from my observations of what is happening at Mother Teresa. Anyway we had some fun and a few laughs on the way and the people who I have bumped into and asked about it since seem to have enjoyed it and learned something. The trouble is that Malawians tend to be so polite that I am never really sure if they mean what they say! For me the day was extremely tiring. I was on my feet and talking for 3 hours in the morning and 3 hours in the afternoon and I had to think as well to come up with appropriate examples and answer questions thoughtfully. By the time I got home, in a vehicle full of children from the Secondary School who live further away than most of the others, via Ntukwa and Sigregge, I was absolutely shattered. I did nothing but eat my tea and fall into bed and was probably asleep by eight o’clock! I woke this morning feeling much better and today I have spent the day in Guinea Fowl room with children aged 3-4 years. The Room Leader here is very organised and I felt that the children in the room were more settled because of this. The routine was similar to that in Doves and Ducks, where I have been before. I think this is largely dictated by the arrival of breakfast, morning snack, lunch and afternoon snack. In between were fitted Circle time, Key group time, various Free Flow Play sessions which offered less freedom and less flow than I would like but did allow for some child initiated play, and two outdoor play sessions one in the morning and one in the afternoon. Resources were limited but not nearly as limited as in the Doves and were well looked after and stored in labelled boxes on labelled shelves. Hoorah! Well done the Room Leader. Staff duties were clearly distributed through rotas which were clearly working. There was a rota also for Care Givers to have time to work on their Learning Journeys but I got the feeling these were not working quite so well. However during free play staff were usually in the areas they were supposed to be and were engaged with the children, and clearly enjoying their company. Tick lists of milestones achieved are updated every three months. I need to find out how much the adult-led activities are based simply on the curriculum and how much on the children’s emerging skills, but the care Givers made an effort to make them fun and engage all the children despite larger group sizes than I am accustomed to. Currently blogging in the garden with a packet of biscuits, (strangely they are sweet but potato flavoured; not bad though!) and a cup of mint tea.

Preparation for the "Managing Challenging Behaviour' Training

Finally the weather has remembered it is supposed to be warm in Africa and the sky has been a clear blue all day. It was cold when I woke up so I put on a long-sleeved dress and tights but by about 9.00am it was about 20 degrees and now at half past three it is 27 degrees outside. However it is cool in the house and the views of the mountains were beautiful on the way home. I had to leave the CC a bit early as two drivers were off today and so I ended up with a whole bus to myself, leaving in time for the driver to get back to drive the children who live a long distance away, to their home villages. Tomorrow I have to deliver the first full training day since I arrived. I have spent the day getting handouts together and making sure I have the right leads to connect my laptop to the screen. I'm still not convinced but the IT guy seems to think it will be fine. Since we start at 8.00am I have to be there at 7.30 to set up. I hope it will be long enough. I have to deliver the same training twice to two groups of CC staff so it happens all over again at 1.30-4.00pm. I am a bit nervous about it all, so fingers crossed it goes well. Raising the standard of practice in the Children's Centre is going to be quite a tricky job and I do not have a lot of time to do it. I think the best way to do it is to work with the CC Manager and the Practice Leader so that they can confidently continue the job after I have gone home. The garden here is quite large and there are a number of quite big trees providing good shade. There used to be a pool where Tony once tried to farm fish for the volunteers to eat but it never really worked out, so now it is drained and Charles the Cook/Housekeeper/Handyman/Gardener is growing vegetables at the bottom of a pit where the pond used to be. There are many fruit trees, bananas, guavas, passion fruit, lemons and papayas. Bhavna grows flowers both in pots on the khonde and in the garden so it is very nice to sit out there. Yesterday there were quite a few children about as it was a public holiday so there were pleasant sounds of children playing, and also a troupe of vervet monkeys paid us a visit. It was fun to watch them swinging through the trees. No sign of them yet today!

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!

First week

I arrived in Malawi on Saturday at lunchtime. Already it seems a long time ago. There are a lot of things to do and a a lot of changes to get used to. The journey was long but uneventful. It started with a farewell at Norwich bus station where Keith dropped me off with my two heavy suitcases (one was entirely occupied by books and teaching materials). Once my bags were stowed and we had had a last goodbye hug I got on the bus. When I looked around he had disappeared! Eventually I spotted him in his dark red trousers leaning on a traffic light post and peering at the tinted windows of the bus. I was tucked in behind the driver and he couldn’t see me but I was waving madly. ‘Is that your fella?’ said an African voice? We got into conversation which lasted all the way up the Newmarket Road. He was very interested to find I was bound for Malawi and wanted to know all about the project and why I was going. The journey to Heathrow took over 5 hours and stopped to pick up passengers at many points on the way. Anyway , eventually I arrived and still in plenty of time to catch the plane. I was disappointed that on neither plane did i have a window seat so I was able to see very little, so no watching the sun rise or set, and no wonderful views of the Sahara or Kilimanjaro! My goodness! How Addis Ababa Airport has changed! I remember it as very small with only one terminal. We arrived at Terminal 2 and it took me about ten minutes to walk to the right departure gate. The Blantyre plane was a 737 which seemed very small in comparison to the other. I didn’t get a lot of sleep on either. At Blantyre I filled in a health declaration amongst a gaggle of visitors yawning and borrowing pens off each other, got my passport stamped and was allowed through. I found my luggage easily, fought off a gaggle of people jostling to push my trolley and emerged into rather watery sunshine. Bhavna was waiting outside to greet me and we were into the car and off towards Chilomoni. We stopped to buy plants for the garden on the way and I was reminded that I will need to brush up my bargaining skills! I spent the rest of the day settling in to Mitsidi again. It has changed a lot but it is still a fine old house with a garden with many trees including lemon, guava and avocado. 7 days later. How time flies! What a busy week I have had! I have had no time to blog if I wanted to keep up to date with notes and reports concerning what I have been up to. Eight weeks is such a short time to get everything done, or even everything started I fear! I am supposed to: Conduct a Training needs assessment for the Children’s Centre. Discuss with senior staff how these needs might be met. Support them to make short, medium and long term plans to meet those needs. Review the curriculum for the Diploma in ECD being taught at John Paul II College in Chilomoni. Make sure all requirements of the Malawian curriculum are met. Fortunately I think the ECD Lecturer, who has a strong background in Community Development, which I lack, has already done this. Include all those aspects of the UK curriculum which encourage creativity, open mindedness, curiosity, persistence, encouragement to question and to explore. Get the curriculum accredited with an appropriate body so that the qualification will be recognised throughout Malawi. This also is in progress. There is an existing committee to explore this, and they have already decided to go for accreditation with The Catholic University of Malawi. Apparently they have been given a list of things to do and criteria that must be met. I was promised to be sent this by email but as yet nothing! This will be a week ago tomorrow. I must chase it up. I have had several meetings, met many people and spent two fascinating days on the floor of the Children’s Centre (CC) one in the baby room, Doves, and one in the Toddlers (Ducks). Mother Teresa Daycare is an excellent nursery by Malawian standards and is gaining good reputation , not only in Chilomoni, but also across Blantyre. Parents are very keen for their little ones to come to a centre which has such high staff ratios and where they hope their babies will learn English very quickly. When I talk to staff about the help and training they need there is usually an instant response that they do not have sufficient resources. In the baby room this was immediately apparent. When I arrived children were at Free Play while other children were still arriving. At the puzzle table there was not one complete puzzle. There were base boards and there were pieces, but very few seemed to fit together. Care Givers were chatting positively to the children, one followed a child’s interest in a monkey piece and started a monkey song to the child’s delight. Further exploration showed that no construction toy had more than about a dozen pieces, there were a few battered vehicles, the home corner had dolls but few clothes and not many kitchen bits and pieces. ‘Oh dear, what is going on here?’ I thought. The next day I went to Ducks, for 2-3 year olds. In this room there were more toys and they were better stored, on the whole like was stored with like and there were a lot of pieces in most sets. A conversation with the Centre Manager revealed that when new resources arrive, or are purchased, they are distributed evenly between all the rooms. Why therefore are there such big differences between the two rooms now? I wonder what I shall find in Guinea Fowl and Eagles Rooms next week? Do babies break more toys than Toddlers? Not likely, but possible. Is one less likely to lose pieces of sets and puzzles if Care Givers are encouraged to put them away like with like. Probably. Is there something else going on? Do we need to make an appeal for more good quality resources? Maybe, but over the years many have been sent. Where are they? Who is in charge of resources across the whole Centre? The Practice Leader. What does she think about all this. I shall have to find answers to all of these questions and more?

Take 2 Return to Malawi after twelve years

Well, that was a surprise! Five or six months ago I had an unexpected phone call from Krizevac Head Office in Longton asking if I would be interested in returning to Malawi to help with review, updating, rewriting and accreditation of the ECD Diploma course for Care Givers working at Mother Teresa Children’s Centre in Chilomoni, Blantyre. It is now almost exactly twelve years since I returned from 20 months in Chilomoni researching, writing and delivering the first version of that course alongside my colleague David Meechan who is now Senior Lecturer in the Education Department at University of Northampton, married and father of two. How things change! Well done David! As for me I have filled the intervening years with working with children, in nurseries, as a nanny and most notably as a Sleep Counsellor with Sleep East, a CIC based in Norfolk, offering sleep counselling and support to families with children who struggle to sleep well. I did this with the lovely Joy Bishop who has become a very important friend, colleague and co-walker in the Norfolk countryside. We retired and closed the CIC at the end of 2022 and since then I have been enjoying a largely leisured life with my partner; keeping in close touch with my children in London, Bristol and Paris; adoring my grandchildren and visiting them whenever I can; doing a bit of gardening, drawing, making things and painting (not very well!); and getting a little older every year!! The project described to me six months ago has grown and evolved a bit in the intervening weeks. Now I am going to conduct an assessment of training needs for Mother Teresa Children’s Centre including training for new staff, continuous professional development for existing staff and anything else that may emerge. While I am there I will deliver a few CPD training sessions myself. I will support local staff in seeking accreditation of the Beehive ECD Diploma course by the Government of Malawi so that the qualification will be recognised formally across the country. Put together this is a huge amount of work and I am going for only 8 weeks. I am sure it will pass in a flash! I am looking forward to my return to the warm heart of Africa, to working with the Early Years Trainer at Mary Queen of Peace College and the manager and staff of Mother Teresa children’s Centre, to getting to know the children of Chilomoni again, to seeing more of that beautiful country, and especially to walking or driving home each evening as the sun falls in the sky and watching the surrounding mountains turn gradually from green to blue. So, my blog begins again after a long break. I fly from Heathrow to Blantyre on Friday. Encourage me with your comments. I’ll post again soon.

Hello!

Here are some more links to useful documents should you want to know more about the Beehive Child Care and Early Years Education Course.

1.  An outline of the course content for the Introductory Course

https://dl.dropbox.com/u/31597591/Introductory%20Course%20Outline%20%20.pdf

2.  The curriculum for the Intermediate Theoretical Course

 https://dl.dropbox.com/u/31597591/Intermediate%20Curriculum%20.pdf

3. The timetable for the delivery of the Intermediate Theoretical Course

https://dl.dropbox.com/u/31597591/Timetable%20for%20delivery%20of%20Beehive%20Child%20Care%20Training%20Curriculum.pdf

4.  Part 3.  The practical tasks

Textbook 

https://dl.dropbox.com/u/31597591/Textbook1.pdf

Answerbook

https://dl.dropbox.com/u/31597591/Answerbook1.pdf

Have fun!

Six months on....

Here I am six months after my return from Malawi.  I have spent much of that time writing up the work I did for Beehive and Mother Teresa Children's Centre in Chilomoni for an MA in Early Childhood Studies.  I'm not quite finished yet, but well on the way.  One or two people have asked for the annotated ECD curriculum and at last I have made it available.  Here's the link https://dl.dropbox.com/u/31597591/Beehive%20annotated%20Malawian%20ECD%20curriculum.pdf

I will be adding one or two useful documents over the next couple of weeks, so watch this space!