VDP Progress Report: First Quarter 2010

2010-05-24

Planning of themes has continued every Wednesday and Thursday afternoon respectively. Themes for the past two months included: The sea, Fresh Water, Road Safety and Easter. Children learned about the water cycle and to end the water theme the Grade R learners from both schools went on an outing to the Aquarium. Learnerships The teachers at both centres continue to participate in the Early Childhood Development (ECD) Learnerships and between the two schools we have 8 teachers and 2 gap year volunteers participating in the Learnerships. 5 of these teachers are in their final year and will be completing level 5 by the end of October 2010. The level 5 teachers training at the False Bay College have not yet had a visit to the school or an assessment, whereas teachers training at Early Learning Resource Unit (ELRU) have had a visit and assessment already. Teachers who receive visits and assessments (which is a function of the colleges offering the Learnerships) are more motivated to implement what they have learnt and are encouraged to base their teaching/curriculum on what they learn. There remains a noted difference in the two methods of training. Volunteer Programme The gap year volunteer programme is working really well at the schools. The four volunteers work as teaching assistants to the grade R teachers. Two of the volunteers are participating in Learnerships and the other two are interested in joining the level 1 Learnership later in the year. Other volunteers include the two Rotarian ladies who have been volunteering at the schools for the past 4 or 5 years. We also have the Fish Hoek High School volunteers and students who spend afternoons with children. Recently they also donated marshmallow Easter eggs to the two schools. Teachers from Green Curtains Preschool organised an Easter egg hunt with their children.