First Day at School

23^rd October 2011

Just after taking this I saw that I was covered in little yellow ants

Assembly and Year 1 gewtting ready to saing their National Anthem

The brightest child in Year 1

The staffroom

 
One 5/6 year old came to me to read his work.    He spelt out the word ‘surroundings’, not phonically but very quicly and then read it back…..almost properly.   Mind blowing!  Perhaps the look and say method is the right one out here?   

It is going to take  a few days to work out the best way to help.  

The second teacher I saw this morning fell asleep whilst he gave children work to copy from the board.   They all came to me and we played number games on our fingers.

 The school needs so much help and this is a challenging project.    Discipline is poor and most of the  little ones haven’t got a clue what they are learning.   On the other hand, some 6 year olds can copy well from the board and the bright ones can read it back.   The school is so much more basic than I had been led to believe.

There are no posters, pictures or stimulating materials to be seen.  The children each have a pencil less than an inch long and they share a minute piece of rubber.   Just as well I brought some with me – not enough for all, so prioritising will be essential.

The plan at the moment is that from Sunday to Thursday I will

 try and guide the teachers in the primary school and on Friday morning the secondary school teachers  want help to teach in English.   Friday afternoons and Saturdays will be free time for me.


Running out of battery time so please excuse typos!

The IT room (very basic!) at school was locked this morning as the headmaster is away but it is supposed to have an internet connection so who knows what will happen tomorrow!