Heroes community academy (HCA)
Heroes Community Academy opened its doors in January 2020. It’s a community-based nursery and primary school that gives a high-quality education for minimal fees. Scholarships are available for disadvantaged children, depending on available resources. In addition to nursery and primary school education, under the auspices of Zanzibar Learning 4 Life Foundation (ZL4LF) we also offer outreach programs to help empower the local community through out of hour’s tuition of numeracy and literacy skills. The school serves the catchment areas of Fuoni-Uwandani, Fuoni-Kichungwani, Jumbi and Kibondeni.
School Committee: The school committee includes the headmaster, the Sheha (community leader) and 7 parents. The Committee is responsible for overseeing the executive management of the school, staff discipline and reviewing budgets.
School philosophy: The philosophy of the school is to offer a high quality of education so that students develop their own skills and realize their potential as citizens. We’re committed to ongoing training of teachers so that their knowledge and skills respond both to the changes and expectations in society and to the diverse student needs. We ensure equal opportunities for education especially to girls and vulnerable groups such as children with special educational needs. We provide a safe and child friendly school environment that’s free from discrimination, abuse and harassment. We believe that excellence in nursery and primary education will improve children’s chances at secondary school level and tertiary education. After school there is the opportunity to try different activities such as art, craft, sport and IT.
Curriculum: The core offering of the school is the government proscribed primary school curriculum which includes English, Maths, Geography, Science, ICT , History (all taught in English), Kiswahili, Religion (taught in Kiswahili) and Arabic (taught in Arabic) In addition, the school ensures the children especially girls have the opportunity to participate in sports including swimming, football and netball.
Development plan: The school started with 50 students (25 students per class) aged 4 to 6 years old. 10% of students are on scholarship with the expectation that this will increase as funding becomes available. We are regularly testing students (every 3 months) and are already seeing excellent improvement in all subject areas. The school currently consists of 4 classrooms and plans to open another 2 classrooms and Computer lab by the end of 2020. The school office contains a scanner, a photocopier and there is a library equipped with dictionaries, text books, handbooks for teachers and age appropriate books that students are encouraged to borrow.
School structure and teaching staff: We have a rigorous interview process for selecting teaching staff and ensure that in addition to their teaching qualifications, they are highly motivated individuals who have a good command of spoken English and agree to our discipline policy. In addition, we have a written plan for ongoing professional development of teachers which includes (for example) topics such as motivation, teaching study skills and teaching exam technique.
