2 How can you prepare to use TESSA materials for your school context?

The TESSA activities encourage the use of locally available resources. A good starting point for preparing to use TESSA materials is to find out what resources you already have in your classroom, elsewhere in the school and also in your local community. Also important here is what resources your pupils would have access to at home and in the local community.

For more information go to the Key Resource: Using the local community/ environment as a resource. [Tip: hold Ctrl and click a link to open it in a new tab. (Hide tip)] You can find this by clicking on your country area and then clicking on ‘Key resources’ in the left-hand menu.

TESSA Snapshot: Using local resources

Mrs Bibi, a teacher in Mauritius, made a scale using a clothes hanger, rope and plastic plates to demonstrate comparative terms, in this case, heavy and light.

     

It won’t always be easy to use new materials and ideas because you may need to share what TESSA is about before introducing something new into the school. See Section 7. Why and how you can share TESSA?

TESSA Snapshot: Inspiring a class visit

Mr Kakande Ayasi from Wairaka primary school in Uganda was working with a primary 7 class in Social Studies on global warming. He organised the seventy pupils into groups of five and used TESSA materials to stimulate discussion and to enable pupils to answer questions on global warming. The activity aroused pupils’ interest and they proposed an excursion to local factories (Kakira sugar works) to see the impact on their local environment. Mr Ayasi is enthusiastic about the TESSA materials, finding the activities drew on and enhanced the real experiences of pupils. But he comments that using them is time consuming; for example, time is needed for preparation for the excursions – surveying, seeking permission from authorities and booking the visit.

1 Where can TESSA fit into your curriculum?

3 How can you adapt TESSA materials to use in your lesson plans?