Ferraby
Bahá'í School
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History of Ferraby Bahá’í School. Early beginnings. Children’s classes started in East London when I moved to Upminster in 1980. Drawing on my experience helping with children’s classes in Lancashire, aided by 3 books from USA for pre-primary, primary & intermediate, I started a class with 4 children from Havering. A year or so later, during a visit to the Guardian’s resting place, we met families from nearby communities. While the adults were saying lengthy prayers, I took the younger children for a walk. We went past graves of people from other religions and talked about them. I was amazed at the lack of knowledge in this area, so talked to the parents on our return and promptly expanded my class! Soon we had two classes and Carol Khorsandyon took one. Many people have helped for a while over the years, but Carol has been with us from the start to the present day. By 1985 there were about a dozen children in 3 classes, meeting in people’s homes. School development and service projects. In 1986, following consultation with the national Bahá’í Education Committee, we formalised the school and started keeping records, with 18 children and junior youth in 4 classes. At this time we took assessment very seriously, with tests and exams through the year and marks recorded for homework, results being announced at the annual prize-giving. (Since then the reservations of parents have led us to abandon this idea, pending some national guidance.) In 1988 I wrote a syllabus which we followed for several years, combining the topics in the USA books with those in the UK Bahá’í School Teachers’ Handbook. Holy Days have been given special attention, especially when they have fallen on Monday to Friday during term time. Parents have been encouraged to get permission for children to miss school, special events being organised to make this more meaningful. Sometimes these have been a nice day out, e.g. a visit to a museum in London followed by a pic-nic, or a community service project, e.g. singing at a senior citizens’ home. By 1990 we had 26 students in 5 classes, and following our production of the musical play "Bahá’u’lláh in Baghdad" (an original full-length play, written by 3 of our teachers, with 20 songs and linking dialogue) requests came in from great distances for children to join. It was difficult to manage in people’s homes, so we started looking for premises. In 1992 we managed to find the money to hire a school on alternate Sunday mornings and then allowed the number on the register to increase to 46. For 3 years we had 6 classes, including Youth and Junior Youth. Youth. The Youth group took an active part in the planning of their programme, which included teacher training. It was clearly explained to them that they would not be expected to teach at our school, but having completed our course they would feel confident enough to teach at any other community school where there might be an urgent need, e.g. abroad during a year of service. They had a thorough theoretical grounding mixed with practical sessions. These started with observations of regular teachers and continued with planning lessons, teaching a class for a short time and setting & marking homework, then teaching for longer times. All of these activities were followed up with discussions about how successful they had been and how they might be improved in future. One of the first group to complete the course did in fact become a teacher at our school and is still with us now. Junior Youth. In 1992 and 1993 we hosted junior youth weekends, which were very successful. Most of the participants came from our own school, but quite a few joined us from some distance away. Transfer of students to next class. When the first syllabus was written for our school, in about 1987, it was on a basis of 3-year rolling programmes for each class. The idea was that one third of each class would move up to the next class each September. This did work to a certain extent when we had large numbers, but most of the time we have found that it is more practical for a whole class to move up together every three years, especially when there are gaps in the ages of students attending. Syllabus changes. Since 1994 we have been using "The Virtues Guide", most of the time spending about 10 minutes each lesson on a virtue, including role play to help students remember each virtue. We chose to have the whole school study each virtue at the same time, which meant that some assemblies could meaningfully be based on a virtue. For a while the classes took turns at making a presentation during assembly; although this was good for developing their skill in public speaking, it placed great demands on the teachers and took up a lot of class time. (Currently the parents take turns at providing something for the whole school to do at break time.) Each virtue was normally studied for 2 consecutive lessons, with homework taking place between them. We have now studied the 52 virtues in the book; there are many more, but perhaps the most important ones are in the book, and the teachers like having the material on each virtue available, so perhaps it is time to start again at the beginning – the students will be in another class now, so will study at a different level of understanding.. In 1994, on a recommendation from the Thomas Breakwell School, London, we started using the "Enlighten" books from USA, which are actually written in the form of lesson plans. This was very successful, but after the national curriculum was published in 1996 a detailed analysis showed several gaps in the "Enlighten" material. This motivated me to produce a new syllabus in 1998 based largely on "Enlighten" but also including some use of the thematic syllabus "O God Guide Me" and identifying where new material is required. Although most of our teachers are happy with this combination, it would be better to have a traditional syllabus derived directly from our national curriculum, together with some example lesson plans, and so I have started work on this and hope to have it ready for use by September 2001. In answer to a query by another director, this will include up to age 18. New director! Most of the above has been gleaned from annual reports I have written over the years. I have seen 3 changes in school venue and a change from joint responsibility to a single trustee LSA. Although we do not have many students coming from a long distance any more, which means our numbers have dropped over the last 5 years, it is encouraging to hear that in most cases this is because children’s classes have started in other areas; when we get the promised "entry by troops" they will no doubt develop into community schools. In the meantime our dedicated teachers must not mind if the numbers are low; even if only one student comes to a class, the teacher must be happy that there IS one, and teach with just as much enthusiasm! After 20 years of organising the classes at the local level, I have resigned as director, partly so that I can spend more time working at national and regional level (and partly due to the demands of 2 grandchildren – soon to be 3). I wish the Ferraby Bahá’í School every success in the future, and offer to the new director any appropriate help which I am able to give. Alan Woodhurst. End-of-year celebration 22-7-2000. 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