The school in New Canaan started the summer term with 133 children in the Children’s House and 9 in Elementary. More children will be ready to move into elementary in the autumn term by which time the school registration will be complete.
Mentor-Teachers Milcah Jerotich and Lilian Mwaura have been working with the Diocese’s Assistant Education Secretary to coordinate inspections by the Ministry of Education, the Ministry of Public Health and Sanitation, and the National Environment Management Office. Once the reports are submitted, the school will be registered. The officers who have visited so far were very impressed with the school.
The water system and gutters were cleaned after the recent rains and work is underway to install an electricity connection in the elementary classroom.
The teachers are planning an end-of-year school trip to the Lake Nakuru National Park. This will be the first time that many of the teachers and children will be visiting the park despite having lived around the edges of it for many years. Everyone is excited and looking forward to it.
School at Kisima
The school opened with 80 children in the summer term. The water tank was cleaned before the start of the new term and the community came together to clear the area in front of school building for the children to work and play outside. With the rains coming to an end, the children can spread out and enjoy more space outdoors.
Parents continue to ask for an elementary classroom to enable them to keep their children in a Montessori environment for as long as possible. Expansion plans will depend on when the land will be surveyed and subdivided. The community representatives are in touch with the Land Registrar for updates.
Training
The 2017 Corner of Hope trainees on attachment have had their first assessments in May and are all doing well, as are the trainees in the 2018 cohort currently in training. The St Ann’s Montessori Teachers Training College is putting into a place a new system of more regular reports on trainees’ progress.
The Kenya Montessori 3-6 Curriculum is still with the Kenya Institute of Curriculum Development (KICD) and the team is waiting for a final meeting with the KICD officials.
Elementary teachers and trainers Eileen Spalla (USA) and Poinsy Pino (UK) continue to remotely mentor and support the National Elementary Course graduates in Kenya and Tanzania. They will visit in person later in the year.
Teachers – Professional Development
As part of the ‘upskilling’ and capacity building initiative for Corner of Hope, efforts are being made to provide more teachers and trainers with the opportunity to study or attend events at an international level. These are being made possible by the generosity of external individual donors.
The 5 trainees (4 from Nakuru and 1 from Nairobi) on the AMI 3-6 Diploma course in Tanzania are preparing for Module 5 in June-July 2018, and St Ann’s tutor, Beth Kosgei, has been invited to participate in the 2018 EsF Assembly to be held in August in South Africa.
Montessori Samburu
Montessori Samburu: A team of four teachers (2 senior teachers from Corner of Hope and 2 Samburu trainees on attachment) is now based in the Namunyak Conservancy and visits the Ntaparani and Tintil settlement areas to work with the children and parents in temporary Montessori environments.
Next steps include bringing on board a researcher for an ethnographic survey as well as a videographer to document project progress. The school building construction was delayed due to government approvals and is now slated to begin in the first week of June.