We were up bright and early to get ready for sports day. Armed with cricket bats, a soccer ball and other supplies including a mountain of biscuits we set off for school. The children have had no PE teacher this year and so they get no opportunity to run around during the day. We would normally run the sports day on our last day but Aerian is returning to the UK tomorrow for her daughter’s graduation and so we brought the day forward.
On arrival at school we discovered that neither of the two English teachers who were to help us run the day had come to school and neither had the Principal who had given permission for the day to go ahead! This was a language challenge as we recruited other teachers to help us instead. They all cheerfully got involved and soon there was a great game of cricket going between the two 7th grade boys classes.
We organized teams games for the 7th grade girls and the whole of the 8th grade. Four teams of ten competed in running, hopping, egg and spoon (adapted to trowel and tennis ball) and ball games. We modeled the games and asked the teachers to translate for the children. Much hilarity ensued as misunderstandings were ironed out but soon everyone got the hang of it and the children competed excitedly and noisily watched by the younger children.
We then repeated the games for the 6th grade whilst the 7th grade girls went off to do art activities. It is always sad for us that we cannot include the entire school in the sports activities but there is not enough space or enough of us to run the activities simultaneously.
After the games every child in the school got some cookies and we prepared for a meeting with the teachers.
Meeting with teachers
We wanted to meet with all the teachers to make sure that they understood why we were there as we have been mainly working with the English teachers so far this year. We had prepared a short questionnaire to find out if there are any ways that they would like us to work with them next year. We had the questions translated into Tamil and the teachers could answer the questions in Tamil or English.
Next we presented the laptops computers and digital cameras, donated by ASL. We had held back on this until now as we had three concerns. Firstly we wanted to make sure that the teachers knew that these laptops were for them all to use with their classes not just the English teachers. Secondly we wanted to make quite explicit that these laptops are to support them as they teach the children – they are not for personal use and are not to leave the school premises. Finally we had concerns that the computers might reduce further the time that teachers spend with their students.
We also gave them a ‘dongle’, which will allow them to access the internet. We asked them to use the cameras to send us photos to keep us updated with how they are using the computers, with the promise of more next year if they are being used well.
We also gave them the paint needed to paint the 3rd and 6th grade classrooms and explained we would repair the floors and supply 4 fans to keep the children cooler in those rooms.
A busy and successful day!
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