Every excellent school year begins long before the first student walks through the gate. At Jephthah Comprehensive Secondary School, the countdown to the 2026/2027 academic session began with something the school considers non-negotiable: investing in the people who make the mission possible. From 25th August to 3rd September 2026, every member of staff; teaching and non-teaching, academic and support, hostel and kitchen, administrative and janitorial, took part in a structured, ten-day staff training programme designed to sharpen skill, align purpose and reset expectations for the year ahead.
For a school whose mission speaks of building “excellence in learning, self-discipline and motivation,” this training was not a formality. It was a deliberate act of preparation, rooted in the belief that a school can only give its students what its staff have first been equipped to give.
Setting the Tone: Culture, Ethics and Expectations
The programme opened on Tuesday, 25th August with a session that set the spiritual and cultural foundation for everything that followed: opening prayers, orientation and a shared vision for the new session. From there, all staff moved into a conversation on Building a Positive School Culture: Everyone is Responsible, a session that placed collective ownership, rather than departmental silos, at the centre of how Jephthah operates.
The rest of the opening day dug into the values every member of the Jephthah community is expected to embody: professionalism, ethics, attitude, teamwork, communication and child protection, followed by a detailed walk-through of Jephthah’s institutional policies covering staff expectations, accountability and code of conduct. It was a foundation-setting day in the truest sense, before any subject-specific or role-specific training began, every staff member was reminded of the standard Jephthah holds itself to.
Academic Excellence: Sharpening the Craft of Teaching
With the cultural foundation laid, the training turned its attention to the classroom. Across 26th and 27th August, academic staff, teaching and non-teaching alike, along with academic assessors, engaged in a series of sessions built around one central question: what does excellent teaching actually look like in a 21st-century classroom?
Mr. Onyedikachi Nwogidi led a session on effective teaching, classroom management and student engagement, while Mr. Samson Musa took assessors and boarding staff through safeguarding protocols, covering child protection and reporting procedures with the seriousness the subject demands. Mr. Eric Damabel followed with a session on student development, addressing 21st-century skill-building, student motivation and inclusive education for learners with diverse needs.
Thursday’s sessions pushed further into academic rigour, with Mr. Yoro facilitating a session on academic excellence that integrated biblical principles with sound assessment, feedback and monitoring practices, a clear reflection of Jephthah’s conviction that faith and academic standards are not separate pursuits. He closed the day with a leadership-focused session for Heads of Department and academic leaders, covering departmental planning, supervision, reporting and the use of data and results to drive academic improvement across the school.
Every Role Matters: Training Across the Whole School Community
One of the most notable features of this year’s programme was its deliberate inclusion of every department, not just the classroom. On Friday, 28th August, training ran in parallel tracks tailored to different teams:
- Hostel staff spent the morning with Mrs. Yvonne King Maxwell on student welfare, safeguarding, emergency response, and building positive relationships with boarding students.
- Janitorial staff trained with Mrs. Ugo Major on sanitation and safety standards, from cleaning protocols across toilets, classrooms, offices and common areas, to the safe handling of cleaning materials and waste management.
- Administrative staff worked through two sessions — one with Mr. King Maxwell on effective school administration and excellent customer service, and another with Mrs. Isioma A. on administrative excellence, covering communication, documentation, confidentiality and records management.
This whole-school approach continued on Monday, 31st August, when kitchen staff were trained on food preparation techniques, professional conduct and professional kitchen management, ensuring that the care Jephthah extends to its students reaches every meal served.
The Human Side of Teaching
Great teaching is never purely technical, and Jephthah’s training reflected that. Also on 31st August, academic staff engaged with Mr. Michael Ogbonna on teacher work ethics and manner of approach, and with Ms. Gloria Akpenyi on building positive trust in student-teacher relationships. These sessions squarely focused on the character and relational skill that sit underneath effective instruction. The day closed with Mr. Ejike Caleb Njoku facilitating a session on interpersonal skills, covering emotional intelligence and conflict resolution, tools every teacher needs both inside and outside the classroom.
On 1st September, the focus shifted forward, with Mr. Marshall Awhotu leading academic staff through a session on EdTech integration. The session explored the use of technology and artificial intelligence in education. As classrooms everywhere evolve, this session ensured Jephthah’s teachers are not left behind, but are equipped to bring relevant, modern tools into their teaching without losing sight of the school’s core values.
Teach Better: A Capstone Workshop for the Classroom
The training programme closed on Thursday, 3rd September with its most immersive session yet: a full-day faculty workshop titled “Teach Better: From Teaching Content to Creating Learning,” designed and delivered by Arnold Omale exclusively for Jephthah’s academic staff.
Running from 10:00 AM to 4:00 PM, the workshop moved teachers through six focused sessions: understanding what actually makes students learn, mastering “The 3-Minute Hook” to capture attention from the first moment of a lesson, the art of asking questions that provoke thinking rather than mere recall, shifting from teacher-centred instruction to genuinely active learning, a classroom engagement framework built around Think–Talk–Do–Share, and a feedback model structured around What, Why and Next.
True to its promise of moving teachers from theory to practice, the workshop closed with a hands-on challenge: each teacher redesigned an actual lesson using the principles learned that day, before a final session of reflection and personal commitment on what they would do differently in their own classrooms. Built around the training approach of Understand, Experience, Practise, Reflect, Apply, the workshop’s stated goal was simple and measurable: every teacher would leave with at least one improved lesson, ready for immediate classroom application.
Alongside this capstone workshop, all staff also came together on Friday, 4th September, for Health and Wellness session, featuring a sports and health talk led by Dr. Inyang, Mr. Michael Ogbonna and Ms. Gloria Akpenyi, a fitting reminder that a school community’s wellbeing is as important to its success as its professional development.
Preparing the Whole School for What Comes Next
Across eleven days, no member of staff at Jephthah Comprehensive Secondary School was left untouched by this training programme, from the classroom to the hostel, the kitchen to the front office, the janitorial team to the school’s academic leadership. That breadth reflects something Jephthah has always understood: that a Christian secondary school of great repute is not built by its teachers alone, but by every hand that shapes a student’s day.
As the 2026/2027 academic session begins, Jephthah’s staff return not just refreshed, but realigned, sharper in craft, clearer on expectation and united around a single mission: to raise students who can think, lead and stand for something. This is what it means, in practice, to keep the doors God has opened wide open for every child who walks through them.
Jephthah Comprehensive Secondary School is a Christian secondary school in Port Harcourt, Rivers State, offering Junior and Senior Secondary education accredited by ACSI and approved by the Rivers State Ministry of Education. To learn more about the 2026/2027 academic session and admissions, visit jephthah.net/admissions.
