How to choose the most appropriate model of education when the educational infrastructure is partially destroyed, and how to develop a calendar and thematic planning and establish a cooperation between school staff who are obliged to work together in the same facility. Team of the NGO Re:Osvita helps the de-occupied Velykodymer community successfully solve these issues, the initial training took place on 29-30 August 2022.
“During Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, 19 out of 23 communities of the Velykodymer community were occupied. 5 educational institutions were severely damaged. In one of the villages of the community, Bohdanivka, the school and kindergarten were completely destroyed, and the buses that used to transport children to this school before the invasion were also destroyed. In these circumstances, on the one hand, it is necessary to look for opportunities for the restoration, and on the other hand, while there is no infrastructure yet, to find a way to teach children. Our task is to help the community to solve these issues,” explained Liliia Hrynevych, Head of the board of the NGO Re:Osvita, the Minister of Education and Science of Ukraine, 2016-2019.
The training united the staff of Bohdanivka school, which was completely destroyed, and Velykodymer lyceum, where the staff of Bohdanivka school will be working temporarily until the restoration of their school.
“During the training sessions, we worked in 4 groups, each comprising both teachers and the administration of these institutions. Each group focused on the advantages of the chosen teaching model by the institutions, selected what they deemed optimal, and provided arguments for their choice. This way, school staff who had not worked together before began to establish contact and build further cooperation in mutual understanding,” said an invited coach, Expert on Quality Assurance of education in the project Support to Ukraine’s Reforms for Governance (SURGe) Olena Linnik.
To facilitate the structuring of the discussion, the coaches handed out checklists with the main issues that the staff members plan to cover before the start of the new academic year. In particular, the following issues were worked out:
- preparation of the shelter;
- staffing of the educational process for the next year;
- management processes;
- algorithms for moving to the shelter;
- cybersecurity in a mixed learning environment;
- organization of the extracurricular activities of the institution;
- food organization;
- inclusivity;
- key aspects of interaction with students and parents.
“It was extremely important for us to show the staff of the two schools that were forced to share the same facility that it is not a tragedy, but instead new opportunities that will help them reach a new quality of education and organization of the educational process in the future. It is supposed to become a synergy, and the effect of the collaboration of these institutions can qualitatively outperform the effect of each of them separately. I have my own experience. There was a fire in the school where I am the principal. It happened before the war. It was a very stressful incident, but we became stronger and better as a result. They left our meeting with a model of mixed learning, which these two staff will use. We were able to work out possible risks together, covering everything from logistics to interaction. And the most valuable aspect is that the staff of the two schools worked together. They found that they actually had few contradictions, and this collaboration could be successfulІ,” said an invited coach, Principal of the Kyiv Gymnasium of Oriental Languages № 1 Oksana Proskura.
The project’s experts will continue to help schools solve problems that arise during the academic year.
“We have worked out issues related to teaching staff, but there are still students and parents. Additionally, practice always makes its own changes to our plans, so from the very beginning, we set our colleagues up to be prepared for unpredictable circumstances. It’s natural, so during the academic year, we will help with the organization of distance learning, and issues of interaction with children affected by the occupation etc,” said Vadym Karandii, project manager.
We remind you that the project “Providing support for the access to education in the de-occupied territories of the Velykodymer community of the Brovary district of the Kyiv region” is implemented with the support of the The International Renaissance Foundation.
The article represents the authors’ opinion and does not necessarily reflect the opinion of the International Renaissance Foundation.
The event materials are available here:
