July,

2016
Nepal Hub

Objectives:

To improve local facilities to support learning outcomes

Support children to reach their learning goals
Increase exposure to books and reading as a means of expanding English vocabulary

Summary
This school year we have taken the opportunity to make some changes in the structure to the child care programme
at Male Patan with the goal of optimising the effectiveness of our volunteer support and providing more motivation
and job satisfaction for the current local staff. Both of these goals then work toward improved learning outcomes
for the children in the childcare programme. In the past month these changes have really gelled and the positive
developments in the programme have been evident.

Report
During July our construction volunteers have been part of the developments in the childcare programme. They have
refurbished the classroom with the aim of making it feel like a functioning learning centre rather than a local hall
where some childcare sessions are run. This results in pride and ownership for the local staff and children. There
have been some repainting, cupboards made and some reorganisation of the physical
layout of the centre. They have also developed some great resources such as see saws, a
sensory board, large dice and a shapes box. These construction tasks have complemented
developments in the programme itself.

The structure of the day has been altered from rotating groups where children are doing
different things at each station to a structure where everyone is working on the same
focus. The idea is that the children are benefitting as much as possible from the support of
both volunteers and local staff and we can all focus on the same learning objectives at the
same time. So for example, with the story reading aspect of the programme, everyone is
reading together. Children are not distracted by other things going on in the room.
Reading is what is being focussed on by everyone at that time. We use visual stimuli such
as puppets and ipad stories to reinforce meaning and to create interest for the children. The result of all these things
is that children are far more focussed on listening to the stories being shared. This is important for their learning.

One of the added areas is the introduction of music to the programme. This caters to the
Kinaesthetic learners as the children respond and move to the music. Songs that are used
also reinforce English words as the children listen to the words and do the actions.

The local staff have expressed their enjoyment in the new programme structure. This is an
important achievement for us. Their enjoyment has led to improved participation and the
general feel is more of a partnership in teaching between volunteers and local staff. The
local staff appear motivated to learn further and participate more actively.
We have had visits from the local committee as well as the local area minister and
together with parents and school staff they have all expressed their happiness with the
way the classes are run. The biggest indicator however, is with the children and we are
observing greater participation, interaction and confidence in the group as a whole.

If we are to make a difference and empower the local community to be able to run and effective centre, some of the
key factors are that local staff are motivated and involved. Recent developments in the childcare centre have shown
significant progress in these factors and we will continue to use this partnership to support both the staff and the
children.