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approach, district leaders should find ways to differentiate support for schools based on their distinctive performance needs and related circumstances (Anderson et al., 2012; Knapp et al., 2014). This may include targeted intervention at specific schools, responsive intervention from school needs and categorical intervention, which the district office imposes. As a result, district leaders need to develop and implement differentiated and integrated strategies to bring coherence across differing school contexts (Childress et al., 2007; Hopkins, 2007). The next section presents and discusses the findings of DOs visibility in schools.
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DD1 indicated that in his district, there were multi-pronged teams that would visit schools based on the needs of that particular school;
But basically, all DCESs will lead that team, right. The DCESs ja. And then any member who will belong to that team that goes to a particular school, it will be on the basis of the challenges in that school, ja. So, you go to that school because you have a particular school that that school requires, then you go in there and give it that support.
DOs from District Office 1 stated that they had a School Support Team (SST) strategy. Using this strategy, they indicated that they were able to visit schools every day in the morning to monitor the attendance of teachers and learners. They were also able to monitor content coverage and meet with SMT. DD1 explained;
But then, there is a strategy that we are using, and we termed it SST, School Support Teams. What we do there is four things. We monitor late coming, both educators and learners and the teams start at seven o’clock. We monitor the first period, where there is teaching and learning taking place in the first period. Then we monitor absenteeism, both learners and teachers, so that if those are not coming, then we can see how much time is lost and all those things. We also emphasise assessment just to see if this is the learners are assessed.
CM1 elaborated on how they use SSTs;
Because our Director is also passionate in terms of curriculum issues, everybody, as long as you are an office-based Educator, you are put into these programs, whether you are under curriculum, or whether you are in whatever, to say, this is a district project. So, everybody is given a school to go and assist. We call it the Director’s Project, that is the SST, to say, every morning, half-past seven, you must report at school, not even half past, from seven o’clock we are reporting at a particular school. In each and every team, there is a team leader.
DCLI shared similar sentiments;
We have school visits. The school visits take place every day, as per our schedule, like, now Director must sign my schedule. He must sign it because it is there. It is
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now where we inform our schools or our programs for term one. So, we have school visits as per schedule. DCLI1
District Office 1 officials further elaborated on the aspect of SSTs which is My School Project.
They explained how they monitor content coverage by grabbing a school bag to check if learners were given work. DD1 and CM1 spelt out;
We have got what you call my school bag project. With the school project, when you go to a school, any learner that you find, you just grab their school bag. You can go to classes, see to that school bag. It will tell us a story, what is happening.
Without even going to the principal, that thing just… DD1
We check their teaching, we grab a school bag any time for any learner, and we target especially the late ones because we do not want to disrupt, at least, the teachers. Just check the books. The learners’ books can tell you a lot about what is happening in class or what’s not happening. So, when we grab them, we just make our notes, and after that, we discuss with the principal to say, you know, we have checked something like this, we have identified this and that…I will be looking at learner books, né. CM1
The above extracts corroborated the document I reviewed, which showed how DOs monitored schools. This document reveals that the DOs monitored late-coming for both teachers and learners. Dos also checked content-related information in learners’ books. See Figure 6.4 below.
Figure 6.4: SST tools extracted from District 1 monitoring instrument
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According to DOs, visibility in schools helped them understand the modus operandi of teaching and learning. Working together as a team, both curriculum support and circuit management helped them address both the quantity and quality of the work of supporting schools. By working together as a team, they could intervene immediately and follow up. CM1 summarised this clearly on how the circuit manager and curriculum officials collaborate;
I am not a Curriculum Specialist; when I open a learner’s book, I do not look at the quality, I look at the quantity. I count the number of exercises. This child in Mathematics, one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight. You see, we call it ‘search a bag’ according to our district. And I write, so and so, Mathematics, Grade 8 has got eight exercises. They check the quality; at the end of the week, I give them my report, and I say, this child at school A, I counted eight exercises. They will make a follow-up to say, ei, ei; something is not right, you see? But not the quality. I do not know whether it is right or wrong. So, that is how we work. We understand it in that way. The curriculum people, when they have challenges with teachers and what have you, on curriculum, they will report to me. And say, we found 1, 2, 3, can you assist us? Right, then I go to the school and say, principal, I have had this report about this teacher. The teacher is far behind with work. What is the challenge? Is it because of absenteeism? Any early departures? What have you? Because if they do not go into issues of needs, HR matters. But after checking and talking to the teacher, because I will talk to the teacher and the supervisor of the teacher, who is an HoD or the Deputy. Then at a later stage, I give them feedback. I have intervened. That is how we work in this. CM1
Quite noteworthy in this theme is how DOs’ team approach to supporting schools through school visits could enhance communication within DOs as well as between DOs and school SMTs and teachers in the quest for improving teaching and learning through monitoring and support. What also emerges is that; DOs visibility in schools promotes accountability among DOs. Moreover, from the above passages, there seems to be a general agreement on the need for DOs to be visible and accessible to schools. There is also an indication that when DOs work together as a team, they enhance their practices of supporting schools. By being visible in schools, DOs can intervene and provide feedback in real-time. It also came out that DOs were not only visible in schools; they were also visible in the communities. Hence, below is the
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presentation and discussion of the theme: District-community partnerships as a strategy when supporting schools.