Still breaking ground for Uganda

Child of Hope's amazing, expanding school-in-the-slum now has six year groups in its primary section. As the children grow older, their curriculum becomes more specialised and complicated, so staff have employed two new primary teachers, reports head teacher Peter. Meet Eunice and Silver!

On top of that – and this could be a first for Uganda – They have also employed seven teaching assistants to assist across Primary and Nursery, which ensures that every class has one teacher and one assistant. In the youngest class (which staff call Baby class), there are two assistants because the tiny ones need extra help.

In the picture are Mercy, Caro, Doreen, Josophine and Ruth.

This is a new approach to managing classrooms for their teachers, but they are beginning to understand the benefit of an extra adult in the classroom and a spare pair of hands to help with preparation, resources and behaviour management. At first the teachers didn’t know what to do with their assistants… they've never had the luxury before!

Teacher Mike explained “The teaching assistants are proving to be very helpful in organising the class. They are good at displaying instructional materials, giving the children homework and monitoring classroom cleanliness. It’s a great innovation to have a TA in each class. As we get to know them better, we can give them more and more to do. Some are good at IT which is very useful.”

It’s great to give employment to increasing numbers of community members; huge thanks to everyone in the UK who helps to sponsor one of the teaching staff.