Teacher Training 2024

TRAINING 1

Summary: The first year of a two year training and monitoring project  was completed with First Steps Himalaya. This involved on site training at the schools as well as at the new First Steps Nepal training centre in Sangachok towards the end of the year. Monitoring visits also took place to each of the schools October 2023.
Challenges: Road access to the schools continues to present enormous challenges particularly Jugal and Kalangsha. School visits have been affected by the team being unable to reach locations which this affects the ability for the monitoring to be effective.

Teacher Training Centre: An additional floor has been added to the original earthbag accommodation building in Sangachok. Construction took place between March and September and the new large training hall was fitted out in October. The training space now offers a dedicated space for training which is fitted out with a wide range of learning materials to motivate teachers to return to their classrooms with lots of ideas and enthusiasm to bring about change.

The training: This was held between 13th and 17th October and was attended by 23 trainees from In Your Hands supported schools. The group all stayed at the centre and took part in activities from 7..30am to 7pm. Longer training days meant that the main curriculum could be supplemented with sessions on sorting and organising training materials, rhymes and games and healthy eating. Directors Fionna Heiton and Durga Aran both ran some of these supplementary sessions, whilst two trainers Ranjana Giri and Sabina Tamang ran the main sessions.

Challenges: Several trainees brought their children to the training which had not been anticipated. Whilst some had no other option, one trainee brought an older child. Although we were able to accommodate these children on this occasion, this was less than ideal. 

Trainees reaction to the training centre: The trainees were very impressed with the new training centre which offered lots of space and comfortable accommodation. They loved the food which was prepared by our chef. The feedback was excellent from the group.

Healthy eating training: On request of an In Your Hands donor, an additional session was prepared on the dangers of sugar and healthy eating. This was presented by directors Fionna and Durga and well received by the group who were shocked at the sugar content in cold drinks in Nepal.They split into groups to come up with ways that they could disseminate information to their school communities.

TRAINING REPORT 2

Residental teacher training was held between March 31st to April 4th 2024 at the new teacher training centre in Sangachok. A total of 19 teachers attended from 8 schools. However, only 7 teachers from 3 In Your Hands Schools attended ( 2 from Shree Basic School, 1 from Shree Sundaradevi Basic School and 4 from Shree Kalangsha. Basic School) With the approval of In Your Hands the following teachers from schools outside the In Your Hands project schools also attended
Shree Manjushree Basic School, Solo Khumbu ( 3 teachers) Shree Jaldevi Secondary School, Kalangsha ( 6 teachers)
Shree Kalidevi Basic School, Jugal ( 2 teachers)
Shee Mahakali Seti Devi Basic School, Irkhu Pokhare ( 1 teacher)

The training focussed on refreshing teacher knowledge of behaviour mangement and teaching strategies for early years classes. New activities, games and songs were introduced and trainees created a great deal of their own resources to take back to their classrooms. This training included sessions on teaching culture and being culturally appropriate. Role play activities were popular with trainees who learnt how to create real life situations from cardboard boxes and other locally found materials.

Conclusions
Some schools such as Kalangsha and Jaldevi are making excellent progress whilst others such as Jugal lag behind.
The fact that teachers were not allowed to bring their children to the recent training for health and safety and professional reasons put off a number of teachers from attending.
Low numbers of training attendees from IYH schools was disappointing but other teachers who filled the gaps were enormously grateful for the opportunity.

Monitoring visits after each training are a great opportunity to see what is being put into action and what is not.
Recommendations
Continuation of support from IYH should be based on the uptake of training and implementation of new ideas as well as monitoring reports. We do not recommend investing IYH funds on teachers who are not willing to change.
Whilst Jugal, Sundaradevi and Singhadevi have had a lot of training, there are new schools who attended the last training who could really benefit from more support and are likely to make the desired changes. These include Jaldevi, Kalidevi as well as Shree Basic and Kalangsha.
After a change in head teachers at Jugal, the next assessment will recommend a course of action.
Kalangsha School which is making excellent progress does not have enough funding for a teacher. They have requested support for this. We suggest that funding one teacher could really benefit them.

TRAINING 3

Introduction
Summary: This report covers the training and monitoring in the second half of 2024
for the In Your Hands project schools in Sindhupalchok district, This is the final phase of the current two year project.

Challenges: Road access to the schools still continues to present enormous challenges. This combined with winter temperatures meant that the December monitoring focussed on three of the schools: Jugal, Kalangsha and Kalidevi. The other three schools that recently joined the training programme ( Panchakanya, Jaldevi and Nimlung) were not visited this time. However the previous visits to Panchakanya and Jaldevi were very positive.

Training
Residential teacher training was held between October and November 2024. The training was divided into two sessions so that more experienced teachers could attend a more advanced workshop whilst other teachers who had not attended before could attend a level 1 workshop. The training 4 workshop was attended by seven teachers and training 1 by nine teachers .
Training 4: Oct 18th-Oct 22nd 2024
Shree Kalidevi Basic School, Jugal ( 2 teachers)

Shree Kalanksha Basic School,Jugal ( 1 teacher) 

Shree Jugal Secondary School, Jugal (2 teachers)

Shree Basic School, Hagam ( 2 teachers)

The Training four workshop refreshed the skills of the trainees on what they had previously learnt on contemporary practice in teaching and learning .The course also introduced puppet and doll making as well as paper craft . This was received well by the trainees who were very enthusiastic about the course .Each trainees took collection of resources back to the classroom .

Conclusions
It was good to see some progress at the In Your Hands project schools. Kalangsha is well run and with a large number of children and is doing well. Jugal has also made progress and the ECD is very good. More progress is needed with the older classes however. Kalidevi is making adequate progress but the head teacher needs to put into action what she has learnt at training.
On the December visit, Jaldevi and Panchakanya were not visited but based on the findings of the May visit, both these schools would benefit from further training as they are both good schools with positive teachers.
Running separate training sessions for In Your Hands more experienced teachers and newer teachers was beneficial. This allowed participants to be trained with people of a similar level.
Teachers of class 1 and above need to understand how to supplement the course book with fun activities. They also need to encourage children to speak in English.
Recommendations
Continuation of support from IYH for a further year would benefit all five schools. Priority would go to teachers who teach classes ECD to class 3 who have either not attended before or have only attended one training previously.
Teachers of the primary classes need to learn how to supplement course books with extra activities and how to plan lessons. This will be incorporated into primary teacher training from 2025.
Teachers of the primary classes need some basic techniques of how to get students speaking in English as well as reading English in the text books. This will also be incorporated into the primary teacher training.
All of the schools need learning material - wooden toys, puzzles and story books.