Regular routine and consistency in a familiar environment is good for children, right? Well, I hope not – or more precisely, I hope that is not necessary, because constant change, varying routines and new experiences is more what our girls have been exposed to, and not only since moving to Mozambique.
How to ensure the children get a good education has been a frequent source of discussion and one of the biggest challenges of living in Mozambique. I have written about some aspects of this before in a previous blog, but I’m returning to the subject as it’s topical for us right now as the girls both started a new “school” (their fifth!) a few weeks ago.
The girls’ first experience of a school-like environment was in a Steiner kindergarten, which they both started a few mornings a week when they were three years old. They played, painted, built fires, climbed trees, enjoyed stories, baked bread and learnt to knit there for the next two or three years. They did almost everything in fact, except what children would do in a more regular nursery or reception school – they didn’t learn their alphabet, numbers or any other formal structured subjects.
After kindergarten (via a year in Steiner Class 1 for Harriett, which wasn’t a particular success; by age seven she was ready to read and write properly, not to draw one A4 sized letter at a time with rectangular crayons) the girls moved to our local state primary school in Leconfield. They joined for the final term of year 3 (Harriett) and year 1 (Imogen). Harriett went from learning her alphabet to reading full books in about six weeks; having waited so long to learn to read, it happened very quickly once she was encouraged to do so. Imogen also learnt to read very quickly but was driven to distraction by reading schemes with storylines more suitable for the youngest kindergarten children than for a six-year-old who was used to oral stories, which did not need to be simplified to the level a young child could read.
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Leconfield Primary was a good local school and the girls generally enjoyed it, but towards the end of year 4 for Harriett, we started to think about where she would move after year 5. We knew primary schools could often sacrifice much of the learning potential of year 6 with the focus being on year 6 SATs results, rather than teaching the child and so we looked at independent school options for that time.
Harriett went for a trial day at Hull Collegiate (now Tranby) and somehow Imogen persuaded us to let her spend a day there, too; anything for a change of routine to break up the week. The girls returned from their day buzzing; we agreed that Harriett could join a year earlier than planned and move into year 5. We had no intention of moving Imogen and couldn’t really afford to. Imogen had different ideas, though. Presumably she had spent a large portion of her trial day preparing for the speech that was to follow and which would leave us as parents with no feasible way of denying her the fabulous opportunity she assured us the school would afford her!
So the following September, the girls moved to their third school and their third school system. Hull Collegiate was a success; sadly a reading scheme was introduced shortly after they joined (we had checked they didn’t have one in advance) but other than the drag of having to pretend to read the odd badly written and utterly uninteresting book, alongside the more complex and much more exciting books the girls read for fun, all went well. The girls especially enjoyed sports at Hull Collegiate, although as parents we noticed the greater emphasis that seemed to be given to boys’ sports than to girls’ sports (more boys’ games teachers, more end of year rewards with bigger trophies, more celebration of success on social media accounts…).
Of course, 2.5 years after the girls joined Hull Collegiate, we moved to Mozambique. When visiting Mozambique in October 2019, we all visited lots of schools and the unanimous choice of school was the Aga Khan Academy in Matola, a new school with fabulous facilities, a diverse community helped by a good scholarship scheme for bright but poor local children and an ethos around creating future global leaders. The girls’ trial day and exams went well and they were excited to join when we arrived in Maputo.
By the time we came to Mozambique, the Covid outbreak had been declared a global pandemic and Mozambique had closed all schools. So the girls were to join their fourth school – with yet another entirely new style curriculum as the Academy follows the International Baccalaureate – entirely online. Unsurprisingly, this wasn’t an easy experience; online school wasn’t easy for anyone, but when you haven’t met your teachers and classmates and you’re in a small mono-lingual minority with some teachers not able to speak good English, it was especially hard for the girls. Nonetheless, it wasn’t too bad at least for the first few months. The girls first went physically to their new school around seven months after starting and even then it was part-time in person and with very strict rules and frequent new closures if any child contracted Covid.
As it became clear Mozambique was not suffering too badly from the pandemic and schools needed to fully reopen, the Academy opened full-time. Sadly, the school wasn’t what we had hoped it would be, for a range of reasons, many beyond the control of the Academy. The Mozambican government makes it incredibly difficult for foreigners to come here and any international school relies on a steady stream of overseas teachers to keep it going and this supply of teachers simply wasn’t there. Further, the Academy applied a literal interpretation of the Covid mitigation measures in the country and to ensure social distancing was correctly enforced, the children were forced – during break and lunchtimes – to sit on a marked circle each which was at least 2 metres from the nearest child, whilst outdoors and wearing masks. And don’t forget, typically summer temperatures are 30-40 degrees. Not an enjoyable way for teenagers to spend a day!
Over months, the rules became slightly more tolerable, but the teacher supply problem did not and one teacher brought in to fill a temporary senior leadership role became a particular problem, generally terrorising the school community. Following a week of especially concerning behaviour from this teacher, we kept both girls, who had grown to hate school and become generally miserable, home from school to decide what to do. Imogen never returned. Harriett did return, recognising the importance of being part-way through an exam course (the IB MYP – the equivalent to GCSEs) and Harriett was more able to keep out of trouble, unlike Imogen, who could not resist sharing her honest and generally well-articulated opinions about matters!
And so for Imogen, her fifth type of education experience began; she started home-schooling. Imogen spent about six months learning from home and I think we were all surprised by how successful that was. She worked hard, organised her work, generally got on with it independently and when she needed help or direction, on the whole, was able to wait for the evening or weekend when we weren’t working to discuss what to do. I realised that providing work every day for Imogen would be too time consuming for Sam and I as we both work full time, so after the first couple of weeks of home-school, we set Imogen a long-term project to work on. She spent the next eight weeks on her project on Mozambican Development, covering the history of Mozambique, geography, macroeconomics, the work of NGOs and governmental development agencies and even some music and art. It was brilliant to see Imogen finally working in an organised way, taking responsibility for her research, planning her work and then getting on with it and really enjoying finding out more about the country she was living in. I was impressed at her confidence in tapping into our diplomatic neighbours’ knowledge (and very grateful for their amazing support). Eventually, she prepared a series of outputs including an essay, narrated video, various fact-sheets, historical timelines and a slideshow and she gave an hour’s presentation on her findings to thirty senior managers from my work.
And so for Imogen, her fifth type of education experience began; she started home-schooling. Imogen spent about six months learning from home and I think we were all surprised by how successful that was. She worked hard, organised her work, generally got on with it independently and when she needed help or direction, on the whole, was able to wait for the evening or weekend when we weren’t working to discuss what to do. I realised that providing work every day for Imogen would be too time consuming for Sam and I as we both work full time, so after the first couple of weeks of home-school, we set Imogen a long-term project to work on. She spent the next eight weeks on her project on Mozambican Development, covering the history of Mozambique, geography, macroeconomics, the work of NGOs and governmental development agencies and even some music and art. It was brilliant to see Imogen finally working in an organised way, taking responsibility for her research, planning her work and then getting on with it and really enjoying finding out more about the country she was living in. I was impressed at her confidence in tapping into our diplomatic neighbours’ knowledge (and very grateful for their amazing support). Eventually, she prepared a series of outputs including an essay, narrated video, various fact-sheets, historical timelines and a slideshow and she gave an hour’s presentation on her findings to thirty senior managers from my work.
Imogen continued at home and Harriett at the Academy until the end of the school year in June. In the last week of June, Harriett discovered that a large number of the teachers at the Academy were leaving and they had only one incoming teacher. At that point, Harriett announced she would follow Imogen and leave the Academy.
Home-school was never a long-term solution for Imogen and Harriett did not want to follow that route, so we again investigated options. We found the Brave Generation Academy “learning hub” in Maputo, only a ten-minute drive (or a twenty-minute cycle ride) from home. Following a few visits and some research into what exactly a BGA Hub was, both girls decided they wanted to try that. Unfortunately, they both wanted to be the only sibling to go there, but on that they had to compromise!
So as of a couple of weeks ago, the girls go to the Hub, alongside about 13 other children aged between 12 and 18 and they follow an online British curriculum with iGCSEs and A-Levels for the exam years. The concept is interesting – and again an entirely new way of learning (the sixth style of education now for Imogen) – children physically attend the Hub and so there’s a social aspect to learning, similar to a school, but they learn at their own pace online. The Hub is open 50 weeks a year and children choose when to take their holidays and if needed they can work remotely. They also choose what time of day they work, but alongside the self-directed nature of the learning, there is a lot of electronic monitoring of their work. They are expected to work for five hours a day and progress is monitored on every exercise they do; as everything is online using specialist software, the time they spend on a topic is monitored, their first-time success rate, overall progression versus plan, etc.
The Hub is basically a big house, with a study room, a room with bean bags, a silent room for quiet study and an outdoor area with sofas. There is a learning support person at the Hub who organises the learners’ (they’re not called pupils or students!) work and arranges their various activities. There is a second person who spends most of their time driving the children to various extra-curricular activities; rather than having on-site facilities, the Hub agree with a child what they want to do and then arrange activities with service providers and take the children there. Imogen is planning to do music and singing lessons and athletics, for instance.
In terms of work, the online schemes have video demonstrations, text explanations and other resources, with tests for every step to ensure understanding; children cannot progress to the next stage without passing each test. If they need further help, they’re encouraged to talk to their peers; failing that, they seek help from the learning support helper; and if that also fails, they arrange a Zoom call with a specialist teacher based in Portugal.
So far, this latest approach seems to be working well and both girls are engaged and enjoying the responsibility this gives them, but it is early days still. Harriett has a huge challenge to overcome, switching to GCSEs for the second year of the GCSE course; effectively she needs to do the two-year course in a year, but she is determined to do it.
Back to the idea that constancy and routine is good for children – I don’t know what is good for most children, but our girls appear to be trying to find as much change as they possibly can in their approach to education! Admittedly, much of that we are to blame for (certainly moving to Mozambique) – but I am not convinced it is a bad thing. At least for our girls, after a couple of years going to the same place every day, following the same approximate routine, in most cases even wearing the same clothes (thankfully the Hub does not have a uniform), they seem to become despondent with the mundanity of school and yearn for a change. In terms of the impact on their education, I guess it is too early to know, but they seem to be confident teenagers and they certainly have a broad view of the world; living abroad makes you conscious of the inevitable British bias in the UK education system. There are ups and downs, but on the whole, I am confident the girls will are getting a good, rounded education, with important contributions made from all of the different places they have been to school (or not to school). Let’s see….
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