A case study: balwadis in Pragat Shikshan Sanstha

Dr. Shubhra Chatterji &

Devika Sharma

Data collected byDr. Shubhra Chatterji, Devika Sharma, & Swati Bawa

Method• Sample – 2 Balwadi centres

• 10 days of field visit

• Data collected through : Participant observations of balwadis, i\Formal

and informal interviews with parents, teachers, director, mentor,

founder, Focus Group Discussion with teachers, parents, going through

various artefacts such as children’s work, assessment cards, newsletters,

guidelines for teachers to plan, yearly plan for each gat (group of

children) etc.

Tools used - School Readiness Instrument (SRI), Early Childhood

Education Quality Assessment Scale (ECEQAS), Adaptive Behaviour

Scale (ABS)

Phaltan

As of 2001 India census, Phaltan had a population of 50,798. Males constituted 51% of the population and females 49%. Phaltan has an average literacy rate of 75%, higher than the national average of 59.5%: male literacy is 80%, and female literacy is 70%. In Phaltan, 12% of the population is under 6 years of age. (wikipedia)

Kamla Nimbkar BalBhavan , Phaltan

http://www.mumbainet.com/template1.php?CID=15&SCID=6

A brief background of the organisation

PSS was started by Dr. Maxine Berntsen in 1978. She had come to Phaltan to do her field work for her linguistic research …she first started literacy classes …… supplementary centres….. balwadis …. gradually it all grew to a full fledged programme called Apli Shala. A full time Marathi medium School (Kamla Nimbkar Balbhavan) was started in 1986 – when her friend’s grand daughter refused to go to school after her first day in a KG class!

Philosophy : nurturance of the human spirit

• School should be a welcoming, joyous place where the child learns to trust the world

• School should be grounded in the child’s own cultural context

• School should be a place where teachers get opportunities to develop, innovate, grow and create knowledge that is based on sound theory and grounded in experience.

• The logo is also quite unique – the double helix of the DNA denoting equality . The motto has been taken from Pasaydan by Sant Dnaneshewar, the famous Marathi Bhakti poet - Let all things in creation be friends. (culled out from the organisation’s webiste)

What we found in the two Balwadis

• Colourful, attractive, clutter free environments carefully planned and prepared to stimulate children’s interest, inviting them to participate in many different kinds of activities.

• Multiple choice free play methodology was followed where children played and moved around in a relaxed and fear free atmosphere, during which time, lots of interactions among children and with teachers was actively encouraged.

• The environment was print rich as the focus was on “Emergent Literacy” – for which teachers have been undergoing rigorous training for the last 4-5 years by a pre school expert – with a PhD in Emergent Literacy.

What we found in the two Balwadis

• Colourful, attractive, clutter free environments carefully planned and prepared to stimulate children’s interest, inviting them to participate in many different kinds of activities.

• Multiple choice free play methodology was followed where children played and moved around in a relaxed and fear free atmosphere, during which time, lots of interactions among children and with teachers was actively encouraged.

• The environment was print rich as the focus was on “Emergent Literacy” – for which teachers have been undergoing rigorous training for the last 4-5 years by a pre school expert – with a PhD in Emergent Literacy.

Are children ready for school?

Average score on SRI of 12 children is 27 with 16 being

lowest and 40 highest.Median and mode is also 27

Average score on ABS is 33 with 26 lowest and 39 highest

score.Median is 32 and mode is 31.5

Score on ECEQAS on an average is 113.5 out of 126 with 107

lowest and 117 highest score.

Claim 1

Relationship

based approac

h

Is used to foster

social emotion

al develop

ment

Evidence of good practices :Claim 1

Relationship based approach is used to foster social emotional development of children :

• Parents and teachers, teachers and children, teachers and teachers and children and children, all are nicely bound together in mutually supportive relationships. This is observable in the informal interactions in every day practices as well as in mentoring and scaffolding offered during more formal interactions.

• The communication channel is open – parents feel free to consult teachers any time. The home-school boundary is not sharply defined by design and our research team found ample evidence of this during their stay

• The collaborative spirit of the school is appreciated by parents from varied social backgrounds – in their interviews they appreciated the positive effects that this culture has had on their child’s personality. Children feel emotionally secure in an atmosphere where their home backgrounds are respected and valued.

• The positive effects of this approach were also reflected in the results of the Adaptive Behaviour Scale, where the average score of children was found to be 33 out of 40.

CLAIM 2

Free play with embedded

literacy activities and individualized instructions

Is used to foster school readiness in

a holistic manner

Claim 2 Free play with embedded literacy activities, along with individualised

instruction is used to promote school readiness Free play, when it comes with multiple choices, we found, was good for all round

development of children : children were learning to choose and take decisions, take charge of what they

were doing and this was helping them to become self reliant and confident. They were getting scope to use their imagination, to explore and find out for

themselves - in the various ‘learning centres’ e.g. Bhauli Ghar, Blocks, Science Corner, Book Corner, etc.

They got time to use language in a meaningful way. The teacher got time to observe children and find out their strengths and

weaknesses on the basis of what they were doing or saying This was the time when teachers found time to given one on one support to

children…. mentoring and scaffolding was made possible This is the time when children got opportunities to browse through books and

‘write’ down their thoughts and feelings

Claim 3

The cycle of observation, reflection and planning helps teachers to make individualized plans and get into the mode of evidence based practice

Observation

Reflection

Planning

Evidence Based Practice

Evidence Based Practice

Teachers observe children (3-5 at a time and then take turns) and take down notes. Anecdotes and narratives are also noted down. Systematic documentation is encouraged. Children’s drawings and writings are preserved in a file Transcripts of children’s conversations are taken

Documentation helps teachers to reflect. These anecdotes or narrative are then shared. During sharing teachers are encouraged to link anecdotes with theory and this leads to a process of collective reflection and analytical thinking, resulting in deepening of understanding. We witnessed this process in the weekly teachers’ meeting that we attended.

Information gathering, reflection and analysis leads to individualized planning e.g. if this child /this group shows interest in this, then what should I do with him/them next?

OBSERVATION

REFLECTION

PLANNING

Capacity Building Approaches

Creating a Community of Learners

Trainings and

workshops for teachers

Continuous Mentoring

Research and

innovation by teachers

Encouraging evidence based practices

Creating a Community of learners

Using library as a resource

Capacity building approaches : in small doses – setting a few goals

Observation of each classroom for a week or so

Share strengths and weaknesses of the teachers

in the classroom

Set 2-3 goals for next 6-7 weeks

introduce these practices by giving their theoretical

underpinnings in a simple way

What were the goals?

• Print concept such as cover page, last page, spine of the book, and so on

• Nature of instructions• How or what to ask children

when they make marks on the paper, scribble, make structures with blocks and so on

• What to display, how to display, where to display, how to use displays in the classroom routine

• How to document children’s activities and its relationship with their learning

Mentoring

Eclectic reading approach

Reading of additional material

Organic reading

Decoding, or

phonics

Developed by Dr. Maxine Berntsen with Datta Ahivale in 1987

PSS approach to reading: Eclectic and meaningful

Sentences that a grade 1 child may want to write…Haa mi (this is me)

Haa maajhaa maamaa (this is my uncle)Hi maajhi aaii (this is my mother)

Interactions (teacher-child, child-child)

Aryan is playing with the car

T: where’s the car gong to..to which town?

A: Taai, Pune

T: what are you taking?

A: It’s empty..while coming back I’m going to

bring maal.

After sometime

T: if you’ve had enough of the car, give it to

Atharva.

A: Taai, it has not yet reached Pune.

Classroom interactions or children’s stories are documented, displayed and later in the week read out

Reading out routine activities

Shared book reading

Classroom setting

Organisation of time – free play

Variety and ample resources

Insaan aisi baat seekhtaa hai…jivan kaise jiyaa jaaye…Avanti badi to voh koi bhi school mein ho sakti thi lekin kuch baatein yahan siikhne ko jo mil sakta hai voh koi aur school mein nahi… (Here) one learns…how should one live life…Avanti could have grown up in any school but the things that she can learn here, in no other school can she learn those things..

mother of Avanti, student of Balwadi in Kamla Nimkar Balbhavan, Phaltan

Thank you!