SCHOOL BASED PLACEMENTS

Patandi Primary School

(Normal school, special needs education, nursery school)

-Headteacher – Mr. Tengesi

-Patandi Primary was found in 1954, formally was a Middle School. It was a boarding school charter for the Northern Meru.

-The total number of pupils is 1,015. The number of teachers in the whole school totals 44 (27 female, 17 male).

-The normal school is primary school from ages 8 to 13, Standard 1 to 7. The classes are very large and crowded, as they are limited in space, resources and it is the only school for the Patandi area. In the normal classes they follow a syllabus. Ask your mentor for the current input required. With the mentor, prepared. Lesson plans, lesson notes and teaching aids. After class, collect student’s exercise books for marking. You will also prepare “tests” mark and record the results. Sometimes corporal punishment is administered to students. Do not let yourself get too emotional about this. The education policy allows that the Headteacher or school administrator give 4 strokes of the cane for certain offences. All regular education students’ i. e class 4-7 takes vocational education.

The Nursery Section:

-The nursery area has 72 children, all located in one classroom, ages 3 to 7.

It needs creativity on how to split up the kids for a better learning. The kids are taught how to read, write, and counting numbers. The nursery and Pre-school use basic teaching principles to teach. The alphabet is taught by using the letters and names of things representing that letter e. g S for song, sound. F for food, face fire etc. The children say what words they know from hearing the sound of the letter. Write the letter and draw a picture to represent the word. Example draw S then write the picture of a stick, sun and six. You should also use songs and other games to build their vocabulary and confidence.

-Other duties at the school will include: teaching English, basic literacy to children (reading, writing, counting), providing physical activities to a group of children (games, sports, etc), playing games with the students to promote English speech. Teaching music, teaching practical skills, using games to teach basic skills, working with the teachers to develop pre-school activities and materials that can be used, providing personal presentation and experience to children and teachers for cultural and educational exchange.

The Special Need Unit:

The special needs department works with 4 types of learning disabilities: visually impaired, hearing impaired, intellectually impaired and children with autism. The total number of special need students is 41 (22 boys, 19 girls).

-Communication with the special needs children can be difficult as they speak Swahili and are learning disabled. The best way is to use the teachers and the kid’s guardians. Be patient and find creative ways to teach them.

The visually impaired start with math in the morning with teacher Geofrey. After that you will work on their English. It starts by reviewing the previous lessons (see the textbook they use to enable them retain) Half the class (3 boys) has partial vision and can write. Remember to remind Mwema to put on his eyeglasses. Bethuel and Godbless use a magnifying glass/lenses. They love to play “Hangman” and love to draw. They also love to sing “Simon says” the game provides a good review of “Action Words’ like run, jump stop up touch etc and fun time. Kennedy uses the Braille machine for math and spelling. When the pupils get tired take them outside for a change and teach them English based on what they see and do.

With the intellectually impaired and the autistic, share methods with the teachers. They sometimes need help to calm down the students who get upset or a “fit” sometimes it takes 4 people to calm one kid. For those who use hearing aids, ensure that they are in working order and if not, see that they are repaired. All special education students take porridge at 11:00 a. m every morning. The teachers take turns to make the porridge. Ask them to teach you how to make the porridge so that you can help.

Remember to always speak slowly and clearly. Some of the teachers may need input from you in order to improve on their performance e.g. pronunciation, phonics and word stress.

When there is not enough work in your department, please ask to assist and observe in other departments. Volunteers are part and parcel of the school staff. All teachers under the head or assistant head of school do all the school activities.

Observe former volunteer activities in the special need section and learn better experiences.

Staff meetings are a good time to speak with the staff and share information.