Alefiya HuzefaKindergarten
Teacher. Middle leader. Assistant supervisor.
Moving from the KG classroom to assistant supervisor.
- Now
- Assistant supervisor, kindergarten
- Before
- Early years teacher, then middle leader, over three years
- Programme
- 18 months with Suraasa when she recorded this
- Test
- MOE pedagogy test, cleared at the first attempt
Alefiya was teaching kindergarten on instinct, without the vocabulary to explain her practice when her lessons were observed. In three years she went from teacher to middle leader to assistant supervisor for KG, and cleared the MOE pedagogy test on her first attempt.
The right terms for her practice.
Alefiya Huzefa introduces herself as an early years teacher, a middle leader and “a lifelong learner”. When she enrolled, she says, “I really had no idea that this is going to be a life-changing platform for me.” The first difference she describes is in her own classes. “I’m much more confident now in taking my classes as compared to I was earlier,” she says, and she points to the feedback her superiors give her after lesson observations as the evidence.
The way she talks about teaching changed as well. “My communication has improved tremendously,” she says, “as I’m able to use the right terminologies when it comes to demonstrate my knowledge and approach.” The modules, she says, “equip you with modern strategies, resources and tools”. When the pandemic arrived, modules, strategies and resources on making online learning effective followed “within no time”.
The modules… are delivered with such an efficacy that you tend to apply them in your daily teaching and learning routines.
Workshops, inspections, two promotions.
Being able to explain her practice, she says, gave her the chance to prove her work in her organisation. As a middle leader she mentored her team in various workshops, and she was acknowledged for working towards consistent teaching and learning practices. She says this led to an improvement in several indicators when the KHDA inspection results were declared.
“In a very short span of three years I was promoted from a teacher to an MLT and finally became an assistant supervisor for KG,” she says. With her team’s support in that role, the school achieved a fully developed ranking in its distance learning evaluation. “I owe this to Suraasa as much as I owe it to my team,” she says, crediting the leadership and team building skills she was taught, which she found useful even under social distancing protocols.
A first-attempt pass, and interviews.
Alefiya counts the MOE pedagogy test, cleared “right in the first attempt”, as a personal achievement. In the months before she recorded her account she was interviewed at a couple of schools, and she says she “got an opportunity to secure great employment opportunities in three of my dream schools”. She had been with Suraasa for 18 months by then, and says its team “worked hard like a family in the pandemic” to support learners looking for jobs. “I feel there is a long beautiful journey awaiting me,” she says.
