We cannot believe that five months have passed since Project Star\’s Site Completion Celebration and boy, has this little school grown so much since then! Like with all new beginnings, it took some time to settle and work through a few teething problems but the excitement of having a new space to thrive in was good motivation to persevere and prosper.
Today, Project Star has 40 children in their care and has recently added another teacher to their team, increasing their staff compliment to five. So far, we have managed to send three teachers to NELRU (Natal Early Learning Resource Unit) for training in Baby and Toddler Care, Basic Educare and Orientation courses and appreciate the value these courses have added to the classroom. Our ECD Monitor, Busisiwe Khumalo, can be commended for her efforts in providing on-going support and mentorship to these teachers, carefully balancing the task of helping them adjust to their new environment with making sure that quality education is taking place in the classrooms.
Project Star now also benefit from a partnership with GROW with Educare Centres through the provision of not only quality ECD resources, equipment and training but also on-going business training and mentorship. Focus on iThemba has enjoyed a long-standing relationship with GROW and have seen the value of their work infer of our other Pre-Schools as well.
Apart from growing numbers, Project Star has also grown in character and personality. Joy and happiness are a couple of the traits that best describe the warm atmosphere of the school and in an attempt to capture this, we had the pleasure of holding a photo shoot there a few weeks ago. Here are a couple of our favourite shots from the day.
Photos courtesy of Freshshoots Photography,
