This year, Cheka School has 48 children who we provisionally divided by age into four classes - 3, 4, 5 and 6 years old. Some of the children, mainly those who came to Cheka last year, have already had some structured schooling; others have clearly had help and encouragement at home; others can't yet hold a pencil.

We are therefore faced with the issue of where to start with our teaching, and what to teach them.

Although we employ two local Tanzanian teachers, we aren't convinced that their teaching methods are particularly suitable or successful. They are certainly the methods used across the country, but given the high rate of adult illiteracy in Tanzania, I think we have grounds to question them. For example, I observed the 5 year-olds being made to copy the whole alphabet, upper and lower case, in one lesson, and it was a case of "sit there til you finish". One and a half hours later, some were still at it. Every lesson involves copying from the blackboard into an exercise book. The children able to do so, do it dilligently and often neatly, but often not really understanding what they're writing. Those unable to do so get left behind and no additional support is given.

Compare this to a pre-school in England, where 3 and 4-year olds don't even have exercise books, a blackboard or pencils, and they learn entirely through structured play and activities.

Whilst we cannot switch to this method completely, because the parents here are expecting some sort of proper schooling and there is no question that many of the childrne are fully capable of learning these things, we are nevertheless trying to encourage our teachers to broaden their teaching methods and make use of some of the lovely resources volunteers have kindly donated. Sitting on the rug and counting lego blocks, or picking out which dolls have a blue dress and which a red dress can be just as educational - and certainly more fun - for the children. Not to mention it is less work for the teachers!

The School Support Team, of which I am a member, also includes a couple of teachers who are hard at work advising us on what the children of each age level can be expected to learn by the end of the year. This will hopefully focus our lessons, and slow down the pace at which the children are taught.

So my next task this evening, once i've done my blog, is to trawl through some of the teachers' activity books and pick out some pages that would be suitable, photocopy them many many times, and hope the teachers take the hint and use them! Subtlety never was my strong point!