We are pleased to present our report on the activities at school and the training programme so far.
 
Last month President Uhuru ordered a partial reopening of schools despite COVID-19 fears.  The second week of October saw Grades 4 and 8 and secondary school learners re-joining school and they will continue with their studies uninterrupted as the remaining classes wait for admission next January 2021.
 
Strict statutory rules were imposed on schools to keep children safe and before any school could reopen government inspections were carried out to ensure schools adhered to these rules.   Sticking to the rule of keeping pupils two meters apart in the classroom gave us a choice of either extending the classrooms (with the obvious cost implications) or reducing class sizes.  
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Although, we could reduce the number of children we educate, we didn’t want to do that because the school specifically targets children who otherwise could not afford to go to school.  Reducing numbers would therefore mean that in all likelihood these children would stop their schooling.  Therefore the trustees made the decision to meet the cost of classroom expansion from the reserves we hold and from part of the money raised from the GlobalGiving Campaign.
 
This does not mean we abandoned our planned teacher training programme.  Instead we are delivering an internal Continuous Development Training Progamme in a low cost way.   This training programme, conducted by a respected local Government Teacher and supported by one of our Board Members (who specialises in teacher training, both in the UK and in Africa) Training started last Thursday and during this session the trainer concentrated on the foundations of the new Competency Based Curriculum, learning outcomes and improving the preparation of work schemes and lesson plans.

Each of the 5 five days will be followed-up with another five days of monitoring by the trainer to ensure that teachers have understood and are implementing the training.  At the end of the course teachers will receive an assessment and a Completion Certificate.
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We have confidence in the trainer to deliver the programme effectively and we are keen to retain his professional expertise so that we can offer our teachers continuous professional development throughout 2021.  
 
Rest assured teacher training will remain the forefront of our plans to improve learning at Roko 20 Academy next year so in addition to our ongoing local training we will be returning to our original plan with a 3 week intensive workshop training programme. ​