The second Intensive Training Workshop successfully came to an end last Friday. This workshop brought together all head teachers and teachers from the 16 schools as well as Ghana Education Service officers.

The main focus of this workshop was literacy and phonics. Most teachers in Ghana have had little or no exposure to phonics and it is for this reason the participants were introduced to the Ullo Phonics Programme- a phonics programme for KG1 & KG2 students created specifically for Ghanaian classrooms.

The KG1 Ullo Phonics programme helps to develop children’s listening skills through a series of different games. This provides children with a solid foundation with which they can begin to learn to read in KG2. The KG2 programme introduces children to each of the sounds of the alphabet week by week, which they then use to read and spell simple phonetically regular words. The Ullo Phonics programme ensures that the children have the necessary skills to move on to more advanced reading and writing in Primary school- and this has not gone unnoticed by the Primary 1 teachers. They have been amazed at what the children who have completed the Ullo Phonics programme are able to do- a real success story for the teachers.

The thorough training the participants received equipped them with the necessary skills to begin teaching phonics in their classrooms.

We were thrilled to have some special visitors to the training last week. Sabre’s Founder and Trustee,  Aubrey Malcolm-Green  joined the training to meet the participants and observe the delivery of the workshop by the training team.

On the final day of the workshop, the Cape Coast Metro Education Director, Florence Inkoom, visited and gave a motivational speech to the participants encouraging them to absorb and bring back to their classrooms all that they were learning; “It is a privilege to be part of the Fast-Track Transformational Teacher Training programme and I encourage you to learn everything and teach others who are not benefiting from the programme.”

The workshop was an overwhelming success, with excellent participation and enthusiasm from all of the participants. Everyone left excited and very confident to continue the transformation of their classrooms.

The Transformational Teacher Training team and the trainers from OLA College of Education will be visiting the schools in the next few weeks to see how the teachers are getting on with their implementation of the programme. These visits will also allow the team to provide any support needed; although we are amazed to see what the schools are already achieving – their transformation is certainly well underway!