After the success of the CNT-funded Online Teacher Training programmes attended by ninety-five LPJ teachers last year, CNT has been encouraged by the enthusiastic response for this year’s Lewis School of English courses (www.lewis-school.co.uk). 

Abeer Hanna, LPJ Director of Education for Palestine, described these opportunities as “a light at the end of a very dark tunnel”. LPJ schools, as everywhere in the world, had to adapt rapidly to online learning during the pandemic. This was very hard and teachers rose as best they could to meet this unprecedented challenge. When, in January, Abeer presented her educational review to the virtual visit of the Holy Land Co-ordination Group, she identified lack of computer hardware and unavailability of broadband, compounded with a lack of digital expertise, as her priorities.

CNT cannot supply the hardware but can fund the training. Those teachers who had received training from Lewis have flourished with School Principals and parents noting their transformation. Abeer has identified thirty-one teachers for further training. Suha Haddadin, LPJ Curriculum Director for Jordan, wishes to train all her eighteen kindergarten teachers. Great competition for the twenty-four places on the ‘Getting Creative with Resources’ course beginning on 15^th March has resulted in Lewis School kindly squeezing in another two-week online course, especially for LPJ teachers, beginning on 29^th March. 

LPJ teachers from both Palestine (including Gaza) and Jordan will be ‘sharing and caring’, collaborating online across geographical borders.  Working in pairs using an online forum with a specialist tutor always on hand, gives the teachers digital confidence and expertise. Creating their own resources, using video and a myriad of quality internet links, will ensure that their materials are relevant, attractive and engaging for their students. Their competence will enrich the competence of their students’, fulfilling CNT’s aim of “Helping young people of the Holy Land to have a brighter future”.

Margaret Waddingham DCGHS
Chair of CNT