Pilot Program

In 2011, a cohort of schools was invited into a pilot program, including 15 international schools and one national school in the Gulf region, from Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Bahrain, and Oman. The schools committed to implement the program in its current form, to participate in literacy coach training, and to collaborate with one another as a professional learning community with the goal of refining the program. A prominent element was participation in the first Arabic literacy coach training program. A cohort of 30 trainee literacy coaches is approaching the mid-point of a two-year training program comprised of eight 4-day modules designed to hone their pedagogical and linguistic skills, and skill them to coach and mentor their colleagues as they implement the new curriculum in their schools.

Pilot schools commit to using the program in their schools, providing sufficient time and resources to their teachers, and to having at least two literacy coaches trained. They are asked for feedback and input into refining the program and related materials. Pilot schools collaborate with one-another through the WLI Moodle and WLI Atlas Curriculum Mapping sites.

The pilot schools are: The American International School, Muscat; Qatar Academy; The KAUST School; Dhahran Ahliyya Schools; International Schools Group; Saudi ARAMCO Schools, and The American International School, Riyadh