The beginning of a new school year is always a busy time for the Fast-track Transformational Teacher Training (FTTT) team with Intensive Training Workshops (ITW) for both the teachers and student teachers.

At the beginning of this term the teachers, headteachers and Ghana Education Service officers attended their fourth ITW and we welcomed the new cohort of student teachers to their first ITW.

The teachers were introduced to the new classroom themes, Journeys for KG2 and Learning Through Play for KG1. The ITW4 also introduced the teachers to ideas about how children learn, strategies teachers can adopt to develop children’s self esteem and how to get children talking about numbers.

The student teachers first ITW was also a great success and we enjoyed meeting the new cohort of future kindergarten teachers!

The main purpose of their ITW was to introduce them to the fundamentals of the FTTT programme in preparation for the start of their placements in the FTTT classrooms. The student teachers were able to experience a facilitated play; just as the kindergarten children would each day. This is made up of table top, outside and centre activities, which the student teachers all had a great time trying out.

A great success of these workshops was being able to hold them at Holy Child Kindergarten Centre of Excellence, so that all of the participants are able to learn in an actual FTTT classroom. Last year the training relied on the use of a mock classroom.

There was great enthusiasm from all of the participants, especially the student teachers who realised from last years cohort of students how good the FTTT programme is and how lucky they were to be on it.

The training team also did an excellent job at facilitating the workshops. As the Holy Child trainers are now used to delivering training and have a more in-depth knowledge of the programme than last year, they were able to deliver an efficient and informative workshop. The addition of the Amenano Model Kindergarten teachers to the training team, who have completed their two year FTTT training, is a great benefit as they bring the experience of implementing the programme in their own classrooms to the training team.

Over the next few weeks the team will visit each classroom to see how the programme is running and address any challenges.