An expert reviews the Explorers Curriculum, her review will be used as a guideline to plan our future curriculum.
May to July 2005
  

 

Expert reviews the Explorers Curriculum
Dr Sonal Zaveri with over 25 years experience, mainly in Life Skills Curriculum and Children's Right to Participation was invited to informally review the Explorers Curriculum. The highlights of the review report are:

The reviewer was impressed with the meticulous development and approach to the creation of the Explorer curriculum. A great deal of work and reflection has been involved and it is evident that participation of mentors and youth mentors in this process has been intense.


The model of mentors and youth mentors is an excellent strategy to ensure involvement, sustainability and ownership of the program and should continue to be strengthened.

Regarding the Magic Bus Explorer Curriculum Draft Manual, she said that the sections on our children, developmental milestones are very well researched.

Her review also provides insights for future curriculum development. She has stressed the need for linking, adapting and translating life skills learnt on the sports field with real life. With children this linkage cannot be assumed and needs to be reinforced. Magic Bus curriculum would therefore have to formalize this linkage in its curriculum.

Dr Zaveri's comments "Magic Bus has tremendous potential to bring a real difference and joy in children's lives. With a highly committed staff, good management structures and decentralized approach Magic Bus can concentrate on refining and reviewing its curriculum….". This will guide the research team in evolving better systems for monitoring and evaluating impact on children.

 

Planning the Needs Assesment for year 2005-06
June and July were utilized fruitfully for planning the Needs Assessment exercise, which is very important for Magic Bus. For a needs assessment, our research team lists specific parameters within areas such as communication, health, social skills, sports abilities etc. Our mentors then do a baseline observation on how many kids adhere to these parameters during a session. Their feedback is passed on to the research team. Our partner NGO's provide great help as they share information on the socio-economic backgrounds of the children. We use information received from our mentors and partner ngo's to understand the children better and to plan appropriate Sports and Life Skills Programmes for them.