Using innovative and diverse strategies tested by Fundación Educacional Oportunidad, two Fundación Integra kindergartens in the O'Higgins Region were able to increase attendance and reduce chronic absenteeism, providing more learning opportunities for children.

Attendance is a key factor in the learning and development of children in the early education stage. Aware of this fact, and alerted by the reality of high non-attendance of infants, Fundación Integra Región de O'Higgins worked during 2018 implementing a series of strategies to increase attendance.

Missing 10% or more of school days in a year - regardless of the reason - is qualified as "chronic absenteeism" and is associated with lower learning, mainly in language and mathematics in 1st and 5th grade.

Fundación Integra's annual goal is for each child to attend 75% of the school year's school days. At the end of the pilot program in the middle school levels (3 to 4 years old) of two kindergartens in the region and comparing the results between a level that received the strategies and another that did not participate in the pilot program, it was observed that 78% of the children in the intervened level met Fundación Integra's attendance goal and only 60% in the non-intervened level. In addition, the percentage of children with chronic absenteeism decreased by 24% (77% in the non-intervened level and 53% in the intervened level).

These achievements were possible thanks to the systematic and committed work of educators and principals with strategies arising from Fundación Educacional Oportunidad's program, Un Buen Comienzo, which have proven to be effective in municipal schools in the O'Higgins Region. 

"We are very happy to work with Fundación and the progress we have been able to achieve. We believe that the focus on educational quality is achieved when our children are really in educational spaces, which is why each of these tools that we work together with the Foundation are vital for these objectives. We also want families to understand the importance of their children attending classes and that is why we will continue with this program in 2019", said the regional director of Fundación Integra Yenny Villanueva Carvallo.

The Bello Horizonte kindergarten achieved the best progress in meeting the attendance goal of Fundación Integra Región de O'Higgins. Its senior middle level not only achieved a 12% increase in attendance, but also surprised by decreasing a high rate of chronic absenteeism, from 97% in 2017 to 45% in 2018.

Nicol Delgado, kindergarten educator at the Bello Horizonte kindergarten, explains that they are surprised with the good results obtained and points out that "the best strategies were Super Attendance, which motivated the children to attend classes, and the meetings with parents to explain the importance of their children attending kindergarten".

Fundación Educacional Oportunidad, through its early education program Un Buen Comienzo, has been working on school attendance for more than 7 years, designing and testing strategies together with the educational teams and directors of more than 150 schools in the O'Higgins and Metropolitan regions. Yanira Aleé, Assistance Coordinator of the Foundation, points out that "this achievement of Fundación Integra would be impossible without the great involvement of the classroom teams and the directors of the pilot kindergartens, who applied our strategies and also created new ones, achieving these surprising results".

In Chile, attendance is measured as a monthly average per grade, which does not allow the identification of children suffering from absenteeism, so Fundación Educacional Oportunidad proposes a change of look and performs an analysis for each child, detecting important figures of chronic absenteeism. To combat it, both universal strategies are used, aimed at all children, and individual ones, focused on those children who are at risk or are in the category of chronic absenteeism. These include an attendance superhero who motivates children to attend classes, an attendance panel, parent meetings where information is provided to families, incentives and an Attendance Committee, among others.

In the coming years, Fundación Integra intends to implement the strategies in more kindergartens in the O'Higgins region, in order to achieve the institutional goals, but above all to ensure that the children who attend the institution have many more opportunities for learning and comprehensive development.

We know that early education is a key stage in the comprehensive development of children, but its benefits are evident only when it is of high quality. We thank the participating institutions, and we hope that this work will be a contribution to public policies on early education in our country.

Yesterday, 24 civil society organisations linked to early childhood education presented to the Undersecretary of Early Childhood Education a document entitled "Analysis, proposals and measures to contribute to improving the quality of early childhood education processes in Chile".

The document addresses five key areas that have an impact on the quality of educational experiences and therefore on children's learning. These proposals focus on the promotion of effective interactions in the classroom, initial training and professional development of educational teams (educators and technicians), the importance of pedagogical leadership, family involvement in this educational stage and how to evaluate to improve the quality of early education processes.

We know that early education is a key stage in the comprehensive development of children, but its benefits are evident only when it is of high quality. We thank the participating institutions, and we hope that this work will be a contribution to public policies on early education in our country.

In a document submitted to the Undersecretary of Early Childhood Education, 24 civil society organisations related to early education and gathered in an Inter-institutional Working Group, seek to contribute with measures aimed at improving the quality of education from 0 to 6 years of age in Chile.

Effective interactions; initial and continuous training of educators and early childhood technicians; pedagogical leadership; family involvement and process evaluation are the five areas in which the Inter-institutional Roundtable on Early Childhood Education submitted proposals and concrete measures to the government to contribute to improving the quality of teaching in early childhood education.

In each of the five areas mentioned, a brief diagnosis and bibliographical discussion is presented, leading to measures that could be implemented, some of them by the Ministry of Education, others by universities, professional institutes and technical training centres, and even by the educational establishments themselves, as appropriate.

The Undersecretary of Early Childhood Education, María José Castro, valued the work of the Inter-institutional Roundtable, noting that "Chile needs this type of work, from civil society, the private sector and the government to improve Chilean education". Regarding the proposals, she commented that "once again the focus is on the quality of kindergarten education, where there is 100% agreement between what the document proposes and what the government is promoting".

The Inter-institutional Working Group was led by Fundación Educacional Oportunidad, which has been successfully implementing early education strategies in Chilean municipal schools for 10 years. Marcela Marzolo, executive director of the Foundation, highlighted the quality of the proposals and the serious work of the roundtable: "the proposals and measures contained in the document were discussed and agreed upon by organisations with extensive experience in education. As a Foundation, we believe that they can be a real contribution to public policies, as they gather the experience of the field together with the evidence - both national and international - about what we should be doing if we really want to provide quality early education that ensures learning and a harmonious and comprehensive development of the children of our country".

Marcela Bertoglio, director of the School of Kindergarten Education at the Universidad Católica del Maule considers that "it was a consensual work, but with different points of view that aim to improve quality and the processes that we know should be implemented in early education". For her part, Marta Edwards, executive director of the Centro de Estudios para el Desarrollo Psicosocial, assures that "the issue of quality within educational spaces is fundamental, as it is what really impacts on children's learning, and feeling that our proposals are aligned with the Undersecretariat indicates that we are moving in the right direction as a country".

A few months ago, the Ministry received the proposals of "The Initial Plan", of which many of the organisations participating in this roundtable were part, and whose focus was on access, quality and institutionality. The document presented this week focuses exclusively on the quality of early education processes. What is understood by quality education, how it is achieved, how it is measured, who are the actors involved, are some of the questions that this document answers with concrete proposals, being a complement and a deepening of what was presented by El Plan Inicial to the Ministry of Education.

The "Mesa Interinstitucional de Calidad de los Procesos en Educación Inicial" had the active participation of 24 civil society organisations: Acción Educar, Centro de Estudios de Desarrollo y Estimulación Psicosocial (CEDEP), Centro de Estudios Montessori, Centro de Estudios Primera Infancia (CEPI), Centro de Justicia Educacional, Comité para la Infancia y la Familia, Corporación Emprender, Desafío Levantemos Chile, Educación 2020, Educa UC, Elige Educar, Fundación CAP, Fundación Chile, Fundación CMPC, Harvard University, Hogar de Cristo, Fundación Aprendiz, World Organization for Early Childhood Education, Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile, Protectora de la Infancia, Tu Clase Tu País, Universidad Alberto Hurtado, Universidad Católica del Maule and Universidad de las Américas.

THE PROPOSALS

The Carnegie Foundation, one of the leading institutions in educational improvement in the United States, recognises Fundación Educacional Oportunidad by selecting it to be part of the Spotlight on Quality in Continuous Improvement programme, thanks to the Foundation's experience in the use of the continuous improvement methodology in the Chilean educational context and the positive impact of this innovation in school improvement, specifically in the initial level.

Due to the work that Fundación Educacional Oportunidad has been doing for 7 years using the continuous improvement methodology in its early education programme Un Buen Comienzo, the Carnegie Foundation awarded it this year 2018 the outstanding Spotlight category, which will allow it to share its successful strategy with school community leaders, principals, teachers, policy makers, researchers and funders around the world.

The Foundation's Continuous Improvement methodology is based on collaborative work, where each school community tries out ideas for improvement in its own context. After applying them, analysing them and studying the results, they make the necessary adjustments and, if the idea is successful, they share it with their peers through the Foundation's Improvement Network.

Since 2011, the Foundation has been adapting this methodology to the Chilean educational context, working with classroom teams (educators and kindergarten technicians), management teams (principals and heads of UTP) and managers of municipal schools in the Metropolitan and O'Higgins regions in order to turn it into a relevant tool for school improvement. This, together with training and on-site support, has led to improved teaching practices in terms of the quality of interactions and the use of time for pedagogical purposes, specifically in activities that promote language, which has translated into positive results in children's learning. All of this earned Fundación Educacional Oportunidad to be recognised as a 2018 Spotlight by the Carnegie Foundation.

Spotlight on Quality in Continuous Improvement is a Carnegie Foundation programme that seeks to provide clear and powerful examples of the application of improvement principles, methods and tools to solve educational problems worldwide.

"We are proud of this international recognition for these 7 years of systematic work and innovation in Chilean kindergarten education, as it highlights us at a global level alongside five other high-level organisations such as the University of Illinois and the Kipp Foundation. In addition, this recognition implies sharing our strategies, so that they can be replicated by schools and teachers around the world, which fills us with pride, as the spirit of our Foundation is collaborative networking," said Marcela Marzolo, executive director of the Foundation.

Carnegie Foundation and the Spotlight programme

At the 2nd Learning Session of the We Learn early years English teaching programme, teachers, English-speaking professionals, management teams and community directors met to analyse what had been achieved and to plan for the second semester.

Some of the objectives of the 2nd Learning Session of the Improvement Network of the We Learn programme carried out by Fundación Educacional Oportunidad were to share experiences between communes, teachers and directors of 14 basic schools in Paihuano and Vicuña in the Elqui Valley, as well as to analyse the results obtained in the first semester.

There were more than 30 attendees, including teachers, management teams, community teams and English-speaking professionals who shared a day of work on the teaching of English from the early years, exchanging experiences and learning, analysing achievements and planning for the second half of the year.

Cynthia Aránguiz, from the Juan Torres Martínez school in the Diaguitas district of Vicuña, valued the initiative because "each time I leave with a backpack full of ideas that I can apply in different classes. The best result is that the children have grown fond of the subject and now see it as an important tool for their future.

The activity was attended by the Provincial Head of Education Ianina Erazo, who highlighted the Learning Session stating that "I think that this meeting and the network is an excellent opportunity for continuous improvement in the teaching of this language. For us as a government, the teaching of English is of paramount importance and the work of the Foundation through this programme is in line with our educational objectives".

Since 2011, the Foundation has been working with the Continuous Improvement Methodology in the Metropolitan and VI regions, which involves collaborative work between the schools that are part of the programme and the implementation of improvement cycles to test ideas (Plan, Do, Study and Adjust). In 2017, this methodology was incorporated into the We Learn programme.

In this line of work of continuous improvement, collaboration and the exchange of experiences and learning between teachers and principals is fundamental, with the Learning Sessions being the ideal instance for this to happen. "It is very valuable for the management teams and for the teachers, as the collaborative work allows them to analyse and look for strategies to improve the teaching of English in the valley," said teacher Miguel Ángel Domínguez, from the Jerónimo Godoy Villanueva school in the town of Pisco Elqui in Paihuano.

The We Learn programme of Fundación Educacional Oportunidad focuses on the professional development of teachers and principals with a view to improving the quality of English teaching from an early age and has been accompanying the educational communities of the Elqui Valley for more than 12 years. Peter Morse, member of the board of the Fundación Educacional Oportunidad, highlighted the motivation of the teachers and management teams in the programme. "I see that they have a very positive attitude, how they create their own ideas and use the tools provided by the Foundation to improve their work day by day. It has been a very useful and enjoyable day," said the director.

This is the second of three annual sessions of the continuous improvement work of the We Learn programme in the Elqui Valley, which this year also added the teaching of this language to the 1st and 2nd year students of the Mistraliano secondary school in Paihuano and the Edmundo Vidal Cárdenas school in Vicuña, through Access, a programme that is carried out in conjunction with the US Embassy and with the support of English-speaking professionals from Beyond English.