School
The first term for this year begun on 6th January 2020 with the children coming back to school and new admissions being undertaken. Corner of Hope – New Canaan now has 171 children in the Children’s House environments and 42 children in Elementary, which is an increase from last year’s number of 25. Most of the children from COH New Canaan joined the neighboring Aberdare Primary School, which has been targeting the children because of how active they are and their good performance. In Kisima, about 60 children are currently enrolled, other children having joined Kenana primary School, which is the neighbouring government school in the area.
The new children have now adapted to the environment and are enjoying working with Montessori materials. Some interesting scenarios have occurred, such as with parents who wanted to transfer their children to other schools, but the children refuse to go. Other newly admitted children have at times shown their love for the school, by wanting to follow the teachers instead of going home with their parent in the evening.
The teachers and parents prepared the tie and dye materials for making children’s uniforms. They assigned different roles such as washing the materials, fetchingwater for cleaning, drying in the sun and others folded the fabric after drying them out. Sweaters and shoes have been delivered to the school and the local tailor has already taken measurements of all the children and is in the process of making the uniforms.
Training
Eight new Corner of Hope trainees for the year 2020 cohort have been recruited and joined St. Ann’s Montessori College on 21st January 2020. The trainees from the 2019 cohort have now proceeded for their field attachment and the first assessment will be done during this first term.
Six teachers from CoH New Canaan who are all holders of the National Montessori Certificate and are enrolled for the National 3-6 Diploma, continued with their Module 2 in November 2019 and are set to pursue module 3 in April 2020. Obtaining the Diploma will allow the teachers to apply for a Teacher Service Commission (TSC) number, an official registration as teacher at national level. This will enable them to work in government and private schools across the country.
Montessori Samburu
Under the mentorship of Corner of Hope teachers Judy Mugambi and Terry Koskei, the Samburu Montessori school has continued to thrive and exhibit marked improvement in quality of teaching. The children within the settlement areas of Ntaparani and Tintil attend school on regular basis and there is huge community support towards the two schools.
Plans are underway to establish a third school at Lengusaka, thus ensuring that more children will be able to attend school. Also, the new site will offer an opportunity for the new trainees (Hosea and Veronica) to undertake their field attachment. There will then be two teachers at each location with mentor teachers Judy and Terry rotating between locations. There are also plans to expand the school infrastructure through the construction of the Resource Centre in the nearby town of Sereolipi. School uniforms based on the traditional Samburu attire are under preparation and shelves are being made to accommodate more Montessori materials, thus offering the children a wide range of exercises.
At the moment, the team in Samburu consist of the 2 mentor-teachers from Corner of Hope, and 4 Samburu teachers. With the planned opening up of Lengusaka site, 2 additional Samburu trainees will be incorporated on attachment, thus forming a strong team of trained teachers. Two more students from the Samburu community were recruited this January to join St. Ann’s Montessori College.