Namulondo Esther teaches the pre-primary section at St. Peter's Wandago Primary School in Magamaga. Before our Teacher coaching programme, she had a classroom full of children and almost nothing to guide what she taught them each day.
"Before enjuba came to Wandago, I was not lesson planning because I did not have a curriculum to guide me," Esther recalls. "I would teach whatever came to my mind."
Esther's lack of lesson plans was partly a consequence of the absence of a national pre-primary curriculum, which leaves individual schools and, in some cases, teachers to determine what to teach. Where lesson plans are available, they are often either misaligned with the lessons intended or not followed at all.
The learning experiences of children outside Esther’s classroom are often no different. Many young teachers are eager to support their learners but lack the structured curriculum and practical support to turn that enthusiasm into effective daily lessons. While the national pre-primary curriculum, currently under pilot, may bring greater uniformity, teachers remain underprepared to deliver it. This makes enjuba’s teacher coaching model more important than ever.
Why Coaching, And not Just Training
Our approach with Esther, as with all the teachers we support, wasn't a one-off workshop. It involves regular classroom observation, one-on-one coaching, lesson modelling, and consistent, constructive feedback focused specifically on lesson planning. Our coach worked alongside her, session after session, refining her lesson plans until the process became second nature.
