BMA is boosting teachers' potential to promote Bangkok schools as learning community

The deputy governor said that the School as Learning Community (SLC) policy aims to make schools “places of real learning.” Before this, he was unaware of SLC until a trip to Japan where he saw how teachers were bought to observe educators inside classrooms. The children learn while the educator teaches a pre-prepared lesson. Other teachers observe and review the lesson together afterwards. The deputy governor took an interest in this. This year, the SLC program will expand further from last year in schools in the Bangkok Metropolitan Administration (BMA).

Chadchart Sittipunt, Bangkok governor, had underscored the program’s continuation from last year. He claimed that implementing the SLC is the base of creating change since schools are like operating grounds for bringing in new ideas. “Even if this includes sorting garbage or implementing the CSR, if we do not have protection measures this will cause the different curricula to fracture. The SLC will be like creating a mould to determine what the curriculum will teach, what knowledge will be transferred, and things that will influence who students grow up to be.”

On this occasion, Sanon recounted his experiences observing the training methods in Japan to instructors attending the SLC conference. This included 34 attendees from the teacher’s committee and administrators from two schools under BMA's Sathon District Office's supervision , the Wat Don School and Wat Yannawa School.

“With today’s training session, including extending the efficacy of Bangkok schools in many dimensions, we believe that in the future we will have a small school with large wisdom. It will be a quality small school that will set an example of implementing SLC to others.”

The SLC recognises the importance of giving every child quality education, and the right to equal education. Students, teachers, administrators, parents, and the community are involved in the activities in the opening semester. Everyone can come to observe and reflect on the student’s learning to inform the educators’ teaching plans. Starting the semester according to the SLC means not interfering in the teaching and learning process which will make the educators better understand it and lead to clear changes. The emphasis is on finding the most effective teaching methods.

This workshop for schools in the BMA to better understand the SLC to implement in schools was lectured by experts from Chulalongkorn University’s Faculty of Education. The main topic was learning about the SLC and the subtopics included the school’s opinion on the SLC and Lesson Study which mainly observes and reflects upon class activities.