Our work in schools

Kids Read aims to encourage a love of reading in young children, with the long-term goal of improving academic performance, language and critical thinking. 

Sponsored by HSBC Bank, the project takes place across 7 countries in East Asia. HSBC employees volunteer to work with children at community events, encouraging them to read (in English) for pleasure.

Kids Read story so far: 

In Indonesia, we are:

• Working with 6 major schools in Jakarta where 3 rounds of major trainings will be given to teachers from those schools
• Aimed to reach 1.020 teachers who will benefited from trainings that will be given during the program
• Aimed to reach 1.800 students who will benefited as the impact of trainings that have been given to their teachers
• Providing about 50 titles of English story books for 6 major schools
• Aimed to reach up to 30 HSBC volunteers who will take part of the activities with students at schools
• Holding 4 community events where workshops for Parents and Teachers will be designed and also various activities which involve storytelling,  arts and crafts activities will be designed for children

We are working with G-Resources/Martabe, a huge gold mine in remote North Sumatra, Indonesia, to improve the language skills and teaching methodology of English teachers from the local high schools around the mine. This group of teachers from villages on the edge of the jungles travel from their homes to the mine to attend classes.

Many of the teachers had never attended in-service training, and during pre-course observations it was clear that, during classes, little English was used by most of the teachers, and even less by the students.

Through a blended programme of online and face-to-face language and methodology training, where trainers from British Council Indonesia Foundation trainers are supported by trainers from the mine, the local teachers have shown remarkable motivation and improvement to the extent that they are now conducting 90% of their classes in English and using communicative methodology.

We worked with Diknas (Education Department) Provinsi Kalimantan Barat to deliver face to face training based on the British council’s Certificate in Secondary English Language Teaching (CiSELT) and Certificate in Primary English Language Teaching (CiPELT), adapted for local delivery.

The work was part of a two-year collaboration started in 2012 between the British Council and Kalimantan Barat Government.

We started by conducting a three month initial baseline survey to assess the provision of Pre-service training (PRESET) and In-service training (INSET), the teachers’ language ability and pedagogic knowledge, as well as the English language teaching (ELT) management in the province.

The CiSELT and CiPELT training was conducted over a period of two weeks, with 120 potential trainers from all 12 administrative districts. Trainers then ‘cascaded’ this training in their home district, with support from local district government.

In partnership with Prudential and in connection with the Prudential Eye Awards, we are   providing a series of creative learning experiences for secondary school English teachers in Jakarta, Surabaya and Medan, as part of a regional project. Each workshop engages with local teachers and educators to provide training, support and inspiration and embed 21st century skills, rich language and creative thinking into schools.  The associated Resources Packs are linked to the secondary school curriculum but all activities are flexible and may be adapted for different age-groups and educational context.

As a result of attending the workshops, teachers are able to:

• Integrate visual art to support skills development in a wide range of education contexts
• Incorporate the key elements of Visual Literacy, critical thinking & analysis into lesson plans
• Promote accountable student talk to make thinking visible 

All resources are available to download at https://schoolsonline.britishcouncil.org/classroom-resources/creativity-in-the-classroom%20