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In this guide, there are prompts to support exploration of the content and application to the local context. There are also tips to support educators as they make space and time for professional learning within their busy and, often, stressful lives. Finally, this guide offers some advice regarding online, and/or other technological aspects, of this training.

The Quality Holistic Learning Project (QHL), of which this face-to-face workshop is one element, aims to prepare educators to deliver high-quality lessons which support holistic learning for children and youths of diverse backgrounds (refugee, migrant, and/or citizen) within host country, displacement, and crisis contexts. They define quality holistic learning as that which attends to:

• academic, cognitive, and identity development,
• social and emotional learning, and
• mental/psychosocial and physical well-being and which delivers: positive schooling experiences, ● feelings of belonging and safety, growth and development, and equitable outcomes for all learners.

This manual is intended to support the delivery of one full day workshop on the topic of supporting Quality Holistic Learning in crisis contexts through the implementation of asset-based pedagogical tools and activities and through sustaining safe and secure learning spaces. The workshops are the result of the insightful contributions of a committed team of teachers and educators from Kenya, Lebanon, and Niger.

The Quality Holistic Learning Project (QHL), of which this face-to-face workshop is one element, aims to prepare educators to deliver high-quality lessons which support holistic learning for children and youths of diverse backgrounds (refugee, migrant, and/or citizen) within host country, displacement, and crisis contexts. We define quality holistic learning as that which attends to:

• academic, cognitive, and identity development,
• social and emotional learning, and
• mental/psychosocial and physical well-being and which delivers: positive schooling experiences, feelings of belonging and safety, growth and development, and equitable outcomes for all learners.

A set of teacher guides containing each 6 Mental Mathematics Lesson Starter units for Grade 3 learners, in alignment with the South African curriculum. A different calculation strategy is in focus in each unit. These calculation strategies are taken from the curriculum. Each unit covers a particular group of connected skills, and the aim is to move learners on from counting in ones on their fingers or with tally marks on paper.

Each unit is three weeks long; it begins and ends with a short test for the learners. Marking these tests provides information for the teacher and the learners about how much they have improved in using that particular set of skills during the three weeks. Within each unit, the focus is on three types of calculations: fluency, strategic calculating and strategic thinking.

Working through the Lesson Starters in each unit should lead to improvements in learners’ performance from the pre to post-tests. These improvements show progress in mental mathematics skills and number sense.

The guide is available in 11 official languages of South Africa.