Thread by @SusanDouglas70

I'm not one for a long Twitter thread but today deserves one so here goes...today I visited two schools in the Amhara region of N Ethiopia

The 1st was a rural secondary school for 3050 pupils served in 3 shifts north of Bahir Dar. The head teacher shared his 3 yr vision...

His annual development plan, his (unsurprisingly) high expectations that every child would leave with the equiv of 3 Bs (& many more higher)

The individual target sheets which fed into class targets & school targets and when I asked him what his three biggest challenges were....

He said "effective continuous assessment, effective use of ict and making sure my teachers engage with research to improve outcomes"

& it struck me that in the words of Jo Cox
"We are far more united & have far more in common with each other than things that divide us."

BUT #importantpoint.....I then visited a rural primary school catering for 200 with 3 class rooms, no toilets and no water

Lunch break is spent making sure that every child in the school gets a drink from the tank of water that is bought in every day

And that is kept in the head teachers office (which is also the staff room and storage area & which was approx 3m x 2.5m)

And there I just saw the BEST maths lesson being delivered to children in Y1 who had only been in school for 6 weeks and who were totally...

Engaged by the most wonderful teaching and that's when it struck me that although we are all faced with similar challenges...

We have different expectations about what will make things great. Because today what I remembered is that a great teacher is everything..

So thanks to those head teachers who warmly welcomed me to your schools today. I come away both humbled and inspired #ethiopia #anhara