Renaissance Learning |28 March 2023

Building on progress

The Ministry of Education has renewed its contract with Renaissance Learning for another three years.

Following the major success from the schools and pupils in Seychelles, two resource persons from Renaissance Learning, UK, are currently in the country to train focal persons from the schools from the North of Mahé. The first training was conducted at the Glacis primary school.

This three-year partnership with Seychelles is to help improve student attainment for reading in English in all of the country’s primary schools. This expanded implementation follows a successful pilot project in five schools last year.

During the pilot phase, the ministry saw significant increases in reading among 500 primary school pupils. Utilising Renaissance’s award-winning Star Assessments, Accelerated Reader, and myON products, the programme will increase the availability of books written in English and give teachers the tools, resources, and support to embed and teach literacy across the curriculum.

Chris Job and Lauren Shapiro from the Renaissance Learning -myOn programme aim to help support schools with low usage of MyOn/Star Test and also empower teachers on how to use MyOn to improve reading comprehension. 

They are also conducting training with MyOn Champions, facilitate working sessions with parents and conduct data training.

Additionally, they will be conducting visits at various schools.

“We are so excited to see the progress of Seychelles during the last three years. Children of Seychelles have read over 185,000 books with over 25,000 hours of reading using the Renaissance programme. In the past twelve months over 50,000 books have been completed over 9000 hours of reading. With Seychelles, the most amazing fact is that 59% of the reading happens after school hours. That is a reading culture that we need to encourage,” shared Ms Shapiro.

From the research that has been done in Seychelles, there is a consistency in the progress of each school and the quality also has increased.

Cyril Pillay, director general for Allied Education Services, shared that this mission in Seychelles will focus on building comprehension with myON, research, best practices for comprehension, develop myON quizzes, practical examples to use in the classroom, activities and supporting resources.

During their visits, the Renaissance team will visit Mont Fleuri primary, Plaisance primary, Bel Eau, La Rosière, Anse Royale primary, Takamaka, Port Glaud, Grand Anse, Beau Vallon, La Retraite, Perseverance primary and  Au Cap.

They will also meet the minister and principal secretaries and have a parent session.

Renaissance is a leader in pre-K–12 learning analytics, serving educators and students in more than 90 countries worldwide.

The accompanying photos show some highlights of the training at the Glacis school yesterday.

Vidya Gappy

Photos: Joena Meme