Oasis Secondary School - Nabyewanga

21/02/2022

School compound and students

30/11/2020

Vision 2022

25/11/2020

27/09/2020

Oasis S.S Nabyewanga, O level block nearing completion

03/07/2020

How we discovered the best school in Uganda (and what it means for the other schools)
Thursday 17th December 2015

Phil Elks is International Education Manager for Ark. Formerly head of secondary school accountability at the Department for Education in the UK, in this blog, he talks about the programme he is running to measure educational progress in Ugandan schools.

The best secondary school in Uganda is not a large, prestigious institution. It’s not located where you might expect- in the capital of Kampala. Wealthy families do not compete for their children to gain entry. It’s not equipped with plush sports fields, a well-stocked libraries or a computer laboratory. Even more surprisingly, the best school in the country isn’t the one with the best grades.

In fact, according to research that Ark has undertaken in cooperation with the Ugandan Ministry of Education, the best secondary in the country is a small, unheralded school in a poor rural district. St Daniel Comboni School, is an easy school to overlook when discussing educational excellence.

So what makes us confident enough to declare this one of, if not the very best school in Uganda? It’s because of a measurement we call value-add - a new way of assessing school performance in the developing world, which has revealed something remarkable about Daniel Comboni school that might never have been noticed otherwise.

Value-add measures progress and not just performance

Traditionally, schools in Uganda have been ranked on their exam results. This may seem a reasonable approach, but it only paints a partial picture.

Each year, Ugandan newspapers publish the percentage of students in each school who achieve a “Division 1” ranking – the highest grade out of 4. But this information can be misleading:

It is relatively easy for schools with a high performing intake to achieve good exam results.
Equally, schools doing well in challenging circumstances do not have their achievements recognised. Even schools with the best quality of teaching would struggle to get a high percentage of top grades if their students arrive without basic literacy and numeracy. Does this make them bad schools?
Evaluating schools based on how many students achieve the best grades can encourage schools to focus mostly on their highest performing students. Some teachers do not give sufficient time to helping those who are struggling to catch up, and fulfil their potential. More than half of students drop-out of school early, before they achieve their school leaving qualification.

Is a school that admits high-achieving students who make modest progress as good as a school that admits low-achieving students who then make significant progress? How do we recognise the schools that take students the farthest?

Value-add reveals the schools that make the biggest difference

Value-add compares the results of each student at the end of secondary school to his or her primary exam scores. Schools get credit when a student performs better than expected, given their prior attainment. This allows you to control for the ability of a school’s intake, and to gauge more accurately the quality of teaching offered by each school.

Over the last few months, Ark has developed and tested a value-add model for Ugandan schools. We have collected primary and secondary leaving exam results from a representative sample of 30,000 pupils. This has allowed us to identify when students make more or less progress than expected.

Using value added measures, we are confident that the Daniel Comboni school is one of the best in the country. Students entering Daniel Comboni start out with average results. But after four years of schooling, nearly every student winds up with a division 2 or better score on their exams. Other schools get higher marks, but none of the other 334 schools we visited help students to make as much progress. Considering where their students started, Daniel Comboni school is showing that Ugandan schools can perform remarkably well even in challenging circumstances.

How do they do it? The school has a vision based on providing a holistic education for all its students. Each student is encouraged to be a self-starter, and take responsibility for their own performance. At the same time, teachers are encouraged to work with students after class if they spot any difficulties. The head teacher regularly visits each class to ensure lessons are of a good quality.

And this school is not alone. Ark’s partner organisation PEAS runs a network of schools in rural districts in Uganda. A value-add measure will enable Ark and PEAS to more accurately measure how these schools are progressing compared to other schools. Many PEAS schools, such as Akoromit PEAS high school, in the north of the country, were revealed to be performing exceptionally well on value-add measures.

The importance of identifying underperformance

But perhaps even more important than finding the best schools, is identifying the weaker ones.

Uganda has rapidly expanded access to education over the past 20 years. The vast majority of children here have the opportunity to go to school, but the quality of teaching in some places urgently requires improvement. Using value added measures we can work out where there are underperforming teachers and school managers. These schools can be held to account, and provided with extra help where necessary.

Using value-add, schools would no longer be able to use the quality of their incoming students to explain away poor performance. This is a frequent excuse in some poor, rural areas, where students often enter school with limited skills. Value-add allows you to tackle these low expectations by showing that other schools in exactly the same circumstances perform much better.

Improving school accountability in Uganda

So, how can educationalists in Uganda use this tool to create policy changes? In England, the accountability system has teeth. School management can be changed if results are poor. This can prompt improvements in the weakest schools, and gives everyone a strong incentive to perform well. A similar approach could be considered by Ugandan ministers.

There are other ways value-add can be used to support weaker schools. Our research revealed weak and strong schools could be found in every region of Uganda, often side by side. Perhaps they could be matched? Daniel Comboni surely would have much expertise to offer if paired with a nearby underperforming school. In some cases, schools looking for solutions might find them right next door.

In the end this is the real benefit of the value-add project – not just coming up with a new, better way of measuring schools and identifying excellence, but giving Ugandan schools the opportunity to spread excellence, and address challenges. The best school in the country isn’t meant to be a secret, it’s meant to be an inspiration.

20/05/2020

Tips to prepare your child for school
Now that we have started preparing our children for school, it is important to look at these very useful tips for preparing your child for school:
1. Attend a school orientation session. Find out when your school runs orientation sessions and make the time to attend.
2. If possible, organize play dates with children who will be in their class over the school holiday period
3. Talk with your child in a positive and cheerful way about starting school
4. Monitor your child’s response to conversations about school
5. Address challenging behavior with understanding. It is important to determine what your child is trying to communicate with their behavior.
6. Encourage positive or appropriate behaviour. Children need to be able to do what the teacher asks, follow rules, and interact appropriately with both adults and other children.
7. Set up routines which help your child go to sleep and wake in time to get ready for school. Adequate sleep is vital for school – it’s essential to good behaviour and for concentration.
8. Teach them to take care of their things. As with toileting, children will need to be able to care for their school things.
9. Practice playing games where people have to raise their hand to say something and wait for their turn to participate. Also help them understand that not everyone gets a chance to talk every time in a classroom even though they may put up their hand.
10. Teach your child self-calming strategies. Children need to know how to calm themselves appropriately when they are upset and you aren’t around to help them. Use age-appropriate activities, which are soothing

18/05/2020

15/05/2020

Tips That Might Help to you Deal with Stubborn Children
Stubbornness is defined as having an unwavering determination to do something or act in a way. Simply put, it is refusing to change one’s thoughts, behaviors, or actions regardless of the external pressure to do otherwise.
1. Try to listen
Communication is a two-way street. If you want your child to listen to you, you must be willing to listen to them first. Stubborn children may have strong opinions and tend to argue.
They may become defiant if they feel that they aren’t being heard. Most of the time, when your child insists on doing or not doing something, listening to them and having an open conversation about what’s bothering them can do the trick.
2. Connect with them, don’t force them
When you force children into something, they tend to rebel and do everything they should not. The term that best defines this behavior is counter-will, which is a common trait of stubborn children. Counter-will is instinctive and is not restricted to children alone. Connect with your children.
3. Give them options
Stubborn children might have a mind of their own and don’t always like being told what to do. Tell your stubborn four-year-old child that she must be in bed by 9pm, and all you will get from them is a loud “No!”. Tell your adamant five-year-old child to buy a toy you chose, and they will NOT want that. Give your children options and not directives. Instead of telling them to go to bed, ask them if they would want to read bedtime story A or B.
Your child could continue to be defiant and say, “I am not going to bed!”. When that happens, stay calm and tell them matter-of-factly, “well, that was not one of the choices”. You can repeat the same thing as many times as needed, and as calmly as possible. When you sound like a broken record, your child is likely to give in.
4. Stay calm
Yelling at a defiant, screaming child will turn an ordinary conversation between a parent and a child into a shouting match. Your child might take your response as an invitation to verbal combat. This will only make things worse. It is up to you to steer the conversation to a practical conclusion as you are the adult. Help your child understand the need to do something or behave in a specific manner.
5. Respect them
Your child would probably not accept authority if you force it onto him. Here are a few ways you can model respect in your relationship:
• Seek cooperation, don’t insist on adherence to directives.
• Have consistent rules for all your children, and do not be lax just because you find it convenient.
• Empathize with them – never dismiss their feelings or ideas.
• Let your children do what they can for themselves, avoid the temptation to do something for them, to reduce their burden. This also tells them that you trust them.
• Say what you mean and do what you say.
6. Work with them
Stubborn or strong-willed children are highly sensitive to how you treat them. So be watchful of the tone, body language, and vocabulary you use. When they become uncomfortable with your behavior, they do what they know best to protect themselves: they rebel, talkback, and display aggression.
7. Negotiate
Sometimes, it is necessary to negotiate with your children. It is common for them to act out when they aren’t getting what they want. If you want them to listen to you, you need to know what’s stopping them from doing so.
Start by asking a few questions like, “What is bothering you?” “Is something the matter?” or “Do you want anything?” to get them to talk about it. This tells them that you respect their wishes and are willing to consider them.
Negotiation need not necessarily mean that you always give in to their demands. It’s all about being considerate and practical.
8. Create a congenial environment at home
Children learn through observation and experience. If they see their parents arguing all the time, they will learn to imitate that. Marital discord between parents can lead to a stressful environment in the house, affecting the mood and behavior of the children.
9. Understand the child’s perspective
To better understand your stubborn child’s behavior, try to look at the situation from their perspective. Put yourself in your child’s shoes and try to imagine what they must be going through to behave in such a way. The more you know your child, the better you can deal with their stubborn streak.
10. Reinforce positive behavior
There will be times when you would not know what to do with stubborn children to control their anger and aggressive behavior. But if you react without thought, you may develop a negative attitude towards the problem and even reinforce their negative behavior unwittingly.