By James Wakahiu
Running a bell-less school without a staffroom is a different kettle of fish given the fact that all schools ring bells and operate staff rooms.
However, Aimeel Preparatory School is one of its kind where teachers and pupils are finding it comfortable not having a bell in the school and teachers opting to do what is normally done in the staffroom right from their classrooms.
The tradition according to the School Principal Chrisphine Oluoch is the most fundamental in managing the affairs of the school and making teachers real managers of their own classrooms. “Staffrooms in the past have been converted into places of politicking and analyzing their social lives,” he said.
Oluoch said his school adopted the tradition since its inception four and half years ago.
He said the reason why the school is operating without a bell developed when it started with three children from three different classes, one in Standard 1, 2 and five.
Therefore, he said, it was difficult to ring a bell as it would confuse everybody since their programs were also different.
“We could not ring a bell since the programmes for Pre-Unit, lower and upper primary were quite different”, said Mr. Oluoch.
But he also said after the population grew, it was very difficult to reverse the trend as any child who enrolled in the school was inducted into the system.
Oluoch further claimed that bells used to be rung in churches but in this digital era, they are no more. “They are sometimes disruptive and cause many children to panic especially when they are doing exams,” he said.
Kezia Njeri is one of the class managers who is operating a desk like a staffroom at the back of the class.
She said though she had difficulties when she first entered the school, she later loved the system and says its one way of shifting from analogue to digital.
Njeri urged other schools to adopt the system and see quite a big difference.
She said the system keeps her awake as every time she sets a vibration alarm in her phone to alert her when her lesson elapses.
She also said most children have watches and every time a new teacher is having difficulties, he or she is alerted by the pupils that his or her time was over.
“Another interesting thing is that the classes are managed by two teachers where the class manager sits at the back and monitors each and every teacher who pops in to teach his lesson,” he said, adding: “If the History or CRE teacher is unprepared, the class manager notices and is able to correct him or her.”
According to the school principal, the system is the best and calls on the Ministry for Education to borrow a leaf from them saying teachers are the managers in the devolved system and, therefore, should be near their children.
He also said marking should be done in the class so that the teachers can help the child one on one.
