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Bryony Black
Name: Bryony Black
Background: Maths teacher
VSO role: Maths teacher trainer, Nehale secondary school
My typical day as a maths teacher began at 7am, when I generally taught four lessons. I was responsible for an entire cohort of International GCSE candidates (IGCSE), which consisted of 3 classes of 36 students.
After break at 10am, I would head off to one of eight schools to observe lessons and to work with staff on any teaching problems. I often found that teachers were required to teach topics that they themselves didn't fully understand.
Once a term I held a training workshop at my school for the local teachers. I also became involved in circuit (about 40 schools) and regional training with another volunteer. This involved organising workshops on a larger scale and doing training work with 'facilitators' (local teachers who were identified as strong maths teachers to assist their colleagues).
During my two years, I also set up a running club and a music club, so my afternoons became quite busy with extra-curricular activities.
I lived in a bungalow with another volunteer. It had three bedrooms, a kitchen, lounge and bathroom. There was running water but no hot water. We washed using a washing up bowl in the bath, but apart from that life was not too different from home.
Apart from the constant sweeping of sand out of the house, the ants everywhere and the battle to keep the mosquitoes out, my only warning to future volunteers is that they need to be ready to live with anyone! You can't choose your housemate, and you just have to get on with it.
The ability to work and live with anyone is one of the strongest and most useful skills that VSO will give you. I also gained management skills from organising workshops and I now feel confident that I can cope in any situation. The VSO training was excellent - I found it very useful and thought provoking, particularly the teacher-training course. I took the notes from that course with me to Namibia, and they were invaluable in setting up my training programme.
I believe that my greatest impact was on the students. I recently got the results of my grade 12 learners who took the IGCSE. They all passed. Usually there would be about 30 grade 'U's out of 100 students.
I feel that I helped the teachers with my training and built up their confidence. But I saw my students change from silent listeners who did not really expect to understand, into questioning thinkers who really felt that they could achieve something.
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