Seenaryo Playkit

To accommodate a million refugee children, Lebanese and Jordanian schools have dramatically increased capacity. They are typically staffed by young adults who never planned to teach: both governments identify their biggest problem as their ‘unskilled teaching force’. Kindergarten is ‘the least experienced level’ (Caritas Lebanon) despite the critical needs at this age.

The Seenaryo Playkit app is a shortcut to holistic teaching. As a standalone resource or combined with training, it transforms teaching via student-centred methods. Its huge bank of curriculum-linked classroom games, stories and songs (in Arabic, English and French) get children participating in their learning. This boosts achievement, wellbeing and behaviour - within inclusive learning environments.

50% of the world’s 65.6 million refugees are children. The Playkit has the potential to become a standard part of ECE delivery not only in this refugee context, but – as skills-based curricula are adopted everywhere – worldwide.

In 2017 Porticus foundation commissioned Seenaryo to run needs analysis in Lebanon with IRC, Caritas and Ana Aqra. We found a lack of student-centred learning, low participation for the most vulnerable and classroom management issues. This is backed up by national review: Lebanon’s ‘RACE’ strategy identifies outdated pedagogy as the root cause: ‘not as learner-centred as industry standards, lacking a life-skills base’.

Refugee children suffer ‘increased prevalence of psychological disorders’ (Lancet). To deal with ‘toxic stress’, Harvard Centre on the Developing Child make seven recommendations, including these target Playkit areas: ‘1) Establish aims of ECE to (re)build brain architecture for self-regulation and executive functioning 2) Design activities through drama, play, arts […] 4) Develop approaches for positive discipline’.

Quality ECE helps tackle RACE’s second central issue: that 59% of children are not in school. ECE is an intervention before the barriers occur (children reaching working age, or a ‘lack of literacy/comprehension in French/English).

Local actors explicitly request CPD: UNHCR recommend training on ‘positive discipline, pyscho-social support…different learning backgrounds’. Flutra Gorana (Senior Manager, War Child) commented, ‘We have searched for a long time. There is not much there, but this group [Seenaryo] had excellent results’.

Jordan and Lebanon host around 3 million refugees, which means 1 in 4 people in Lebanon and 1 in 14 in Jordan. These comprise Syrian (largely) plus Palestinian, Iraqi and other refugees. Seenaryo started running arts programmes in Lebanon in 2015 with both refugee and local communities. We discovered a desperate need to embed holistic methods not just in our projects, but much more widely - in both emergency and public schools (many of whom run ‘second shifts’). In our needs analysis we observed classrooms, and ran teacher focus groups/interviews to establish gaps in provision and where support was wanted.

What was abundantly clear was that teachers did not need extra curricula or learning objectives. They needed participatory tools to deliver their current curriculum, which many found impossible to teach in a non-desk-based way (even while ministries call for this). This was reflected in child feedback, who often found school disengaging (e.g. through lack of differentiation for abilities), and parents who commented on ‘boring’ or ‘difficult’ lessons. Finally, senior management made it clear that money and time were scarce: the solution had to be short on expensive, lengthy professional development – but rich in practical, everyday resources.

The Playkit is a resource to transform teaching for refugee and host community children first in Lebanon and Jordan, then other Arab-region countries, and finally further afield (especially countries with high concentration of refugees which use Arabic, English and French in their curriculum). It was piloted as a paper book in 2017 with 120 teachers across three NGOs and as a result of its overwhelmingly successful evaluation, its funder Porticus funded its transformation into a phone app, due to be released in September 2019.

The Playkit contains over 100 games, 200 songs (old and original), dozens of interactive stories (which children act out) and classroom management ideas – all in English, French and Arabic (the Lebanese curriculum, for example, is in English/French but Arabic is often used for instruction, especially in ECE).

Take a KG2 teacher who is teaching addition tomorrow. She wants a song as a recap activity to engage her hard-to-reach math pupils. On the app, she filters for ‘KG2’, ‘Addition’, ‘Song’, ‘English’, taking her to a selection of relevant songs, including ‘Two Teddies’. She can switch the language of both the interface and materials, so she can deliver it in English with the app instructions remaining in Arabic (essential as, like many teachers, she is not literate in the target language). If she feels the song is too tricky for her class, she can find its Arabic equivalent, ‘dbeyn itneen’. The song can be added to her favourites in order to have offline access in case she doesn’t have a connection in class. To see the dance, she clicks the explainer video and for visual aids, she clicks the flashcards, emailing them to the school office (for printing or projecting). She could plan her whole addition lesson with the Playkit, e.g. a game (‘Hoops & Groups’) as a starter, and a story (‘At the Supermarket’) as a main activity.

Until now, the Playkit has been delivered with a 3-day training. The app will additionally be available on tablet, and also as a website. 

1. The Playkit is not a curriculum – it is an enormous bank of flexible resources, adaptable for any ECE curriculum. We seamlessly tweak our content in response to new curricula, as well as in-app teacher feedback and user data. This is in contrast to the majority of educational interventions at NGO level which are new curricula (constantly re-written, resulting in great expense, plus upheaval for teachers).

2. The Playkit trains teachers in-app, via videos and simple instruction. Moreover, our 3-day training is time-light, inexpensive, and entirely practical rather than theoretical. Other NGOs’ trainings/materials are pedagogical and do not give new teachers the basic activities they require (at worst, they disengage inexperienced teachers as they are too technical). Long-term training involves mentors for each teacher, but this requires massive human resources and reaches few teachers.

3. Many solutions provide materials (e.g. iPads), often for children to interact with. We believe that the most important resource in the classroom is the teacher, especially as ECE needs meaningful adult relationships to develop strong brain architecture. Furthermore, these teachers already have a powerful resource in their pockets – their phone. Making the Playkit for teachers’ personal phones is unusual but necessary, as refugee schools do not provide classroom devices (and yet in Sub-Saharan Africa, for example, 700 million people have phones with data).  

The Playkit uses app technology to bring together a huge amount of material in one, easy-to-navigate platform. There are over 350 different pieces of content in the Playkit (each in 3 languages, totalling more than 1000 activities), making a book unwieldy and impractical to re-print whenever curricula change.

There are multiple ways teachers need to (and can) search for activities. They can search by specific curriculum topic – or activity type (e.g. they might simply want a quiet, focusing song). They can additionally add other filters, such as whether they have a restricted space, or no available resources. These parameters are vital with the restrictions emergency schools face.

Most activities also have multiple adaptations: ‘Four Walls’ can be played for many different subjects but it might be particularly suited to a certain topic such as Seasons – and therefore needs to be prioritised for this search. The intelligence of these algorithms is vital because teachers do not have time to look through irrelevant activities. Simultaneously, the app also signposts them to a wide variety of activities; sparse variety is one of the key problems in lesson delivery.

The language of the app is also key. Teachers select two languages: the language they prefer to read in, and that in which they teach (in foreign language education systems – which are common in the Arab world – these are often not the same). This hugely facilitates inexperienced teachers who are not comfortable in the target language.

Our four teacher outcomes are:

1) More effective curriculum delivery through student-centred approaches.  

Post-training, there was a 71% increase in teachers who said they would tell stories while acting them; evaluation 3 months later showed 91% using interactive stories once/week or more. 90% agree that students spend time in class in a more active way. 

2) Improved classroom management

100% agreed behaviour management was easier: ‘The songs are a game-changer. They have helped a lot with engaging students while transitioning between sessions’ (Ana Aqra Headteacher).

3) More inclusive learning environments

Inclusivity raises engagement: 98% agreed that hard-to-reach students were more engaged with learning: ‘Mohammed was never active in numeracy but after picking up the actual numbers, he started participating’ (IRC teacher).

4) Teachers are happier in the classroom

91% of teachers say they are happier in the classroom.

These outcomes drive three child-based outcomes:

1) Better engagement with learning

94% agreed that children’s learning had improved, including in core subjects like maths (‘The song ‘Two Teddies’ has helped with their small numbers’, IRC teacher).

2) Improvement in life skills

72% agreed that students interact and talk more. ‘Mouaz was destructive at school and home… engaging with these activities, he knows how to regulate’ (IRC teacher)

3) Increased wellbeing

94% agreed students enjoy class more: ‘Thuraiya was always alone. She put her hand in her mouth to avoid talking. But now she shares and talks’ (IRC teacher).

Currently

• Schools: 68
• Teachers: 410
• Children: 10,250

In one year (Dec. 2020)

• Schools: 392
• Teachers: 2,355
• Children: 58,875

In five years (2024)

• Schools: 6311
• Teachers: 37,870
• Children: 946,860

Next year, we aim to reach 58,875 children in Jordanian and Lebanese emergency, public and private schools. While private schools do not fall within ‘vulnerable communities’, these subscriptions make the Playkit sustainable, their endorsement raises our profile, and all children in the region stand to benefit from the Playkit approach. We recently met with the Lebanese Ministry of Education who want to include selected Playkit materials within their national textbooks and similarly in Jordan we are beginning work with the Queen Rania Foundation (responsible for much of the state’s ECE). We wish to help governments modernise ECE curricula using Playkit material, implementing training nationally and bringing the app to their teachers for a reduced price, as a result of the mass reach.

By 2024, we hope to be reaching around a million children across roughly 10 key countries with education systems in Arabic, English or French, which are predicted to still be affected by mass migration and the refugee crisis (e.g. Iraq, Palestine, Syria, Sudan, Tunisia, Algeria, Libya and Yemen). We would also be operating in non-affected countries that use the same languages (e.g. UK, France, UAE and Qatar).

Even in developed countries, ECE is relatively under-funded and under-resourced. As education systems globally adapt to a creative economy, the Playkit could be a key resource for the practical implementation of a skills-based curriculum – and most importantly, in the critical years in which these capabilities develop (i.e. the first five years).

Sales

Schools only have a handful of ECE classes each, meaning one sale can mean just six subscriptions (e.g. KG1, KG2, KG3 teachers – and their assistants). The schools’ market also does not behave like other sales environments: they can be insular, often without online/social media presence and teachers and decision-makers are sometimes not easily reachable.

Networks

We do not yet have visibility outside Jordan and Lebanon, nor the current staff capacity to focus on developing international networks.

Funding

As a small and relatively new organisation (we registered in the UK in 2017), our core staff work on very low salaries for their level of experience (as is common when passionate change-makers join at a developmental stage). We cannot realistically expect either to retain these individuals or attract similarly talented people unless we find funding to increase salaries.

Cost to schools

Due to the costs of trainer fees and transport, the Playkit training costs around $1500. While some schools and big NGOs can pay this, the cost can be prohibitive for smaller schools or public schools.

Expertise

Playkit trainers need a high level of skill and experience. It can drain our core team’s time to find and train trainers in another country.  

Sales

The Playkit now contains Grades 1 and 2 material. The aim is to cover ECD (to 8 years), making the schools' offer more appealing, and doubling subscriptions (and revenue) per school.

Large INGOs often work in consortia; sales to these reach dozens of schools simultaneously: via the EU-funded “Back to the Future” we reached War Child, Terre Des Hommes and AVSI.

Networks

To develop our international network, we will increase press coverage, participation in conferences and relationship development. Working with INGOs means we can establish a foothold in their other refugee-affected countries. Support from ExpoDubai will help with networking in the Gulf.

Funding

Receiving our first significant government funding (e.g. from Direct Aid Australia) boosts our legitimacy to other government or multilaterals (EU, UNICEF, etc.). The Playkit is relatively well-funded for development and training, meaning we can focus on bringing/retaining expertise in vital roles (e.g. digital, comms, development).

Cost to schools

To cover training costs, we have a mixed revenue model of charging private schools/INGOs, while raising donor funds for other schools. For example, we recently received money from KidsRights to train community-led schools.

Moreover, while the Playkit benefits from training, it works as a standalone resource. As we hone material and improve algorithms, it becomes an increasingly self-contained resource, providing training in-app.

Expertise

We have local Master Trainers who can train prospective trainers abroad. We constantly work on our training manual, simplifying and streamlining. 

Full-time staff: 2

• Oscar Wood (Co-Director and Co-Founder): chief resource developer
• Naqiya Ebrahim (Country Director, Lebanon): digital, evaluation and comms.
• Myriam Ali-Ahmad (Education Manager, Lebanon) | Coordination and logistics
• Education Manager, Jordan (from August 2019) | As above, but in Jordan.

As Seenaryo is a small team, other employees who lead different Seenaryo projects also support on the Playkit, e.g. with fundraising.

Part-time staff: 2

Freelancers: 15

• 10 Trainers
• 2 Content Creators (in addition to our in-house staff)
• 3 Translators

Contractors: 3

• Digital Agency (WonderEight)
• Filmmaker
• Illustrator

Our team have a combined 30 years experience of early years teaching in the UK, Lebanon and Jordan. This allows us to create material which takes from the best of different education systems, providing solutions to common pedagogical problems. While our staff are both international and local, we all live in Lebanon and Jordan and have worked both at grassroots level as well as for much bigger organisations (e.g. World Vision and UNICEF). Our entire team is fluent in Arabic and English (and half of us are additionally French speakers). Seenaryo’s Co-Directors have both successfully headed and grown other organisations.

Oscar Wood was a teacher, consultant and lecturer in the UK for 12 years. He co-founded and was Head of Learning for now>press>play for 8 years, delivering digital educational experiences to over 20,000 UK primary schoolchildren, using wireless technology. In 2004 he founded Upstage Performance Group who partner THAMES to deliver their flagship primary school singing projects. He has lectured in education at Institute Of Education (UCL), University of Cumbria and Canterbury Christ Church.

Naqiya Ebrahim is an early years educator and drama teacher who taught in the UK for 8 years before moving to Lebanon. Naqiya was an Early Years scriptwriter for now>press>play, Children’s Theatre Leader at Peckham Shed, performing arts specialist at Artis Education, Co-Director at Saturday Storytellers, and Youth Arts leader for Croydon Council. She was also an independent evaluator for now>press>play and Corali Dance. 

When we piloted the Playkit in 2017, we worked with the International Rescue Committee (IRC), Caritas Lebanon and Ana Aqra (an education specialist in Lebanon) to help develop the material. Although not officially a ‘partnership’, we interacted with these organisations at every level: from evaluators and senior management to teachers, parents and children. This was not just for our needs analysis, but also to help us craft much of the material. For example, we harvested best practice from classrooms, with many teachers sharing games or songs, which now form part of the Playkit. In this way, we view all of our clients as unofficial ‘partners’: we visit their schools, evaluate and talk with staff: their experience of the Playkit hugely affects the way we create content.

Currently we work in close collaboration with all of our contractors (WonderEight, plus our filmmaker and illustrator), and they very much help us shape the content and style of materials. However, these are contracts rather than official partnerships. 

Our business model is a subscription model to the Playkit phone app. An individual teacher buying the app pays $24 for a year’s subscription (i.e. $2/month). A school/organisation buying bulk subscriptions for their teachers receives discounts, depending on the number of teachers (dropping to – at the most discounted - $12/teacher).

If any school/organisation additionally buys the training (costing them roughly $1500), they then get the app for just $10/teacher (i.e. we are encouraging them to buy the training, as we know this has the best impact). Trainings additionally generate a small margin for us (roughly $300 per training). We train up to 30 teachers at a time, meaning schools with fewer than 30 teachers can combine with other schools for trainings, splitting the costs between them.

ECE teachers in Jordan and Lebanon teach, on average, around 25 children per year. Depending on the service the school buys (and the pricing), the per child cost is therefore roughly around $1/child/year. In trainings we also run separate sessions with headteachers on coaching and mentoring, and these headteachers receive observation forms which both help them with their coaching, and feed into our evaluation of the Playkit in their school. 

In line with what schools demanded, the Playkit was designed as a low-cost model: short on costly training and long on resources (i.e. the app). This hugely helps our sustainability from the outset.

We operate a mixed revenue model: some schools pay the full cost of subscriptions and training; others pass on some costs to the teachers themselves; and finally, we subsidise schools that cannot afford the training using donor funds and income from paying schools. Even when subsidising schools, they still pay a match contribution (e.g. 25%): this ensures their commitment and reduces the donor funding needed. We frame this match as their subscription, meaning that the following year they must still re-subscribe to the app. We additionally raise seed funding for development of the app and content.

Our clients are NGOs (our majority current client-base), public schools and private schools. We are waiting for the app launch before approaching the private sector, but this is a huge market: 66% of Lebanese schools and 30% of Jordan’s schools. We already have relationships and interest from the most prestigious local private schools (e.g. International College, Lebanon). We will also market the app to individual teachers, parents and volunteers who work with refugees.

We project to be funding 74% of our costs without donor funding by 2021, and by 2022, we hope no longer to be relying on donor funds. 

1. Business modelling. As shown, our business model is flexible as we have several income sources, several client types, and a varied pricing structure with slightly different offers. There are key questions such as the app being available without training – this may create more revenue but there is potential for impact/use to diminish. We would benefit from guidance on building a robust business model.

2. Communications and marketing. As we grow outside of Lebanon and Jordan, we need a bigger platform to talk about the Playkit and advocate for holistic education. We would like to feature in conferences in front of potential partners and clients, and increase our press coverage. We would also like guidance on other comms strategies (e.g. social media) and how we can be reaching educational influencers, clients and so on.

3. Sales. We would benefit from sales knowledge from anyone who sells directly to schools. We do not have expertise in approaching these conversations (e.g. whether to be changing our approach depending on the kind of school).

4. Evaluation. We need more a rigorous evaluation tool for the project’s impact. There are additional challenges involved when evaluating kindergarten children. Results have the potential to support sales, and scale up our impact. 

We would like to partner an academic institution who specialise in ECE, such as MIT themselves or Harvard’s Centre on the Developing Child (HCDC) (we took part in a lecture series jointly led by HCDC and Notre Dame University (Lebanon) and use a great deal of their locally-executed research). An expert institution’s support would help us rigorously evaluate the Playkit, which would inform the Playkit’s future development, and scale up our impact.

We would also like to partner organizations who provide other resources in school (whether digital or more traditional) as the Playkit easily complements other interventions. We can map our activities onto any scheme of work, e.g. flagging relevant songs for a topic, or suggesting interactive story ideas for an existing book or film. This would increase our client-base and also teach us more about sales in the education sector.

We would like to formalise our partnership with the International Rescue Committee (we are already in preliminary talks with them), as they are committed to a holistic realisation of ECE in refugee contexts. With support from the MacArthur Foundation, they’ve developed ‘Ahlan Simsim’ - a multimedia resource based on Sesame Street (very different from the Playkit, but with similar goals). We would like to collaborate with the creative team both in the US and the Middle East, to learn from one another, signpost each other’s content and integrate resources where appropriate.