From Good Shepherd to Penglayan

Another schools visit it is this week. I took the 0700 flight to Marudi yesterday. The flight was delayed for almost 40 minutes. Reached Marudi at 0736, after less than 20 minutes of flying. PPD Baram transported me directly to Good Shepherd elementary school after having breakfast with Suhaimi the driver. The school is just next to the runaway of Marudi airstrip. The is has been my fourth annual visit under the Memperkasa SK Program and Good Shepherd and Penglayan were the last two in my list for 2009 first round of visits for the program.

This is an interesting school indeed. Its locality reminded me of Sarawak Teachers' Training College 1976 where we were holding breath each time an aircraft took off and landed. The difference is the size of the aircraft. Marudi is only served with Twin-Otter 19-passenger aircraft while Sibu then was with fokker and some cessna.

Patrick Tait has his second round as school head at Good Shepherd. During the briefing I did ask this question: Anybody know why this school is called 'Good Shepherd'. I shared some of my Bible Knowledge with some of the teachers.

During the brief, yet meaningful visit, I had the chance to observe some of the learning sessions. Bennet (right) is an interesting boy, suspected ADHD (Attention Deficit Hypher-Active Disorder) year two-student. I managed to talk with him when Patrick brought me to the classroom. Now many would be aware that ADHD has been a worrisome among our students. Some teachers have been exposed to detecting the disorder, while the majority would not understand its existence.

At 0800 today, 14 May will proceed to SK Penglayan using PPD Baram Boat. Form Penglayan will take an express boat to Miri.Teachers at Good Shepherd busy responding to the survey
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SK Penglayan, 14 May 2009, Thursday, 0910 am.
14 May at 0800 we left Marudi to Penglayan, an hour journey by boat. Thanks to PPD Baram for providing the efficient transportation. The Deputy Minister of Education used the same boat two weeks ago when he was on Baram schools visits.
At Penglayan, Adree Lenjau and his teachers received us as usual right at the jetty. They were observing Thursday like any town school: on batik!
The dry season has provided us a clearer vision of SK Penglayan, reminding me of yet another critical problem faced by boarding school: H2O, that is! During lunch time, I jokingly told some of the teachers that I will "provide" some rain and asked one of them either she prefers 'L', 'M' or 'S' which she instantly said "L"! A few minutes after we started our lunch, we heard some rain drops hitting the zinc roof! That continued on when we left for our boat around mid day. The rain was a relief indeed as most teachers have dried up their reserve. Similar to what I sawat SMK Ulu Balingian on 23 April, all the toilet bowls were without clear water and all tanks meant for the toilets were also dried up.

At 6.15pm I managed to contact Razali Ibrahim the PK1 to verify about the rain. I was in great sigh that it did actually rain when I left Penglayan. The teachers were excited arrest as much of the rain as possible with their empty tanks.
Above: Some of the teachers including Puan
Norlida with her small boy followed us to
Kuala Baram for a brief boat tour.

Action Research for underenrolled elementary school heads in Sabah

Great experience! That was one of the comments from the 26 participants of the five-day action research course specially conducted for school heads of under enrolled elementary schools in Sabah. This is IAB's first such course. The course is of three phases where participants will be guided through to conduct action research based on their schools environment and situation.

School heads will be able to use action research to decide on professional matters pertaining to their school management. These will include teachers' career development, students' learning and academic performance, school physical development and school-community partnership.

The course was designed to provide school heads with insight awareness that professional decision making must be data driven. This will be made possible through professional data collection. Most teachers have in-depth knowledge about action research. Since 1988, the Ministry of Education has introduced action research curriculum in all teachers' training college throughout the country.

Now, more and more teachers are able to share their research findings through seminar presentation. Some districts throughout the country are quite active in organising such forum and make it their annual activity. In some districts, such forum is what they are waiting for so that they too could contribute to decision making especially on academic and curriculum matters.

From May 4 to May 8, the 26 Sabah school, heads have participated actively in all the activities we conducted. Dr. Abang Hut and myself were really amazed by their enthusiasm and participation. The works we provided were meant to guide them in two key areas prior to conducting the research, viz-a-viz reflection and item construction. At the end of the course they were guided to write a research proposal. Congratulation to all the 26 school heads in Sabah. I am confident that you will be able to conduct exemplary action research.