In order to maintain the strategies of the Good Start programme over time, directors of municipal schools and school managers from 13 municipalities in the O'Higgins Region attended training given by the area of Continuous Improvement of Fundación Educacional Oportunidad.
Sixty schools from 13 municipalities that make up the Improvement Network of the Good Start programme met to learn about and deepen their knowledge of sustainability tools that will allow them to maintain the strategies and methodologies of the Good Start programme in their classrooms, schools and municipalities over time.
"The objective of this instance is to study and strengthen the sustainability processes experienced by the school and community teams this year 2018 through the delivery of concrete tools for continuous improvement. In this, the management teams and supporters play a fundamental role, as they are the ones who must lead the process that ensures that the strategies and methodologies that worked at the initial level are maintained, making this a continuous process in the classroom, school and commune until quality is fully integrated into the structure and operation", explains Carolina Soto, director of the Foundation's Continuous Improvement area.
During the day, attendees recalled the importance of sustaining strategies to maintain quality, studied their sustainability processes, highlighted the importance of recording specifically in the PHEA (plan, do, evaluate and adjust) improvement cycles to build learning and adjusted ideas or innovations to continue improving in the second half of 2018.
"It has been a great help for us this year and now we want to sustain the strategies, so we are very interested that this programme can be repeated in the other classes and that is why we have attended this training. We have to recognise that this programme has changed early education," said Hernán Barraza, principal of the Mariano Latorre school in Codegua.
Prior to this training, management teams and supporters have received workshops on PHEA continuous improvement cycles, data analysis, the 5 elements theory for sustainability and the 7 levers for leadership.
The objective of all these trainings is to empower management teams and supporters by providing them with the tools to lead improvement processes and implement strategies and methodologies of the Good Start programme to improve teaching and learning autonomously when the Foundation is no longer with them on the ground.
The head of the Chimbarongo DAEM, Víctor Gajardo, values this work with Un Buen Comienzo, "working with the Foundation has been wonderful. We were among the first municipalities to join the programme and it has given us excellent results".
A Good Start is a professional development programme for teachers and managers that seeks to contribute to improving the quality of early education, supporting schools in improving pedagogical and leadership practices so that children can achieve better socio-emotional and language development, and that this 2018 seeks to sustain the strategies delivered in previous years in schools and municipalities.
