Teaching Assistants from UK...Thanks to KPMG and British Council.

The teaching Assistants from UK have settled down well at Gurukulam. They are young, energetic and bring in a huge amount of enthusiasm!

Olivia Ball: Engaging, wonderful smile that attract all our children to her.

Rebecca Neil: Dedicated, conscientious and hard working! 

Here is a recent daily report from Rebecca:

31.08.2016

Science, we revised back over deforestation and they came up with a definition as a class, which we then wrote on the board. We wrote questions on the board on the topic of deforestation which required multiple answers, and got them to come up with as many as they could. They could work together or individually and write them in their books. Both Priyanga and I went around the class prompting them, and helping with spelling. After a short period of time we got them to gave their answers, which were then wrote on the board for others to see and add to their answers. This was repeated this for 3 questions.

Social science, we looked over rules and regulations in public places, and the uses of road signs. The students came up with answers individually and wrote these on the board. As a class we agreed or disagreed on the statements and also looked at the grammar and spelling. These were then noted down in their books for future revision.

Many thanks,

Rebecca and Priyanga

Chris Roberts: Soft spoken, highly enthusiastic and making tremendous inroads into reaching out to the children. 

Here is a recent report from Chris:

Teaching Assistant Weekly Report, 19/08/2016 (Christopher Roberts)

Over the last week the projector room has been repaired, allowing me and Lourduraj to make our lessons more interactive, through the use of visual presentations and multimedia clips. At this week’s heritage club, we taught the students about laws in relation to Indian National Courts, we then linked this in the rules which the students would like to see in their classroom. The most creative of these suggestions were appointing a couple of students as classroom monitors, having a record of student’s misbehaviour recorded and respecting other people’s ideas when speaking. All of which were good to hear and are ideas I would like to feed back to the school management for possible ideas in the future. We are going to carry out a pilot of the red and yellow cards I mentioned in my last reports with IX standard to see how well it works there. Further highlights of my week include an excellent performance in a debate I ran on child labour with IX Standard and a huge improvement in the behaviour of VII standard students when given a more visual style of learning. Today’s lesson with VIII standard also showed great signs of improvement when they were introduced to the projector and more interactive learning resources.

I only have a couple of ideas with regards to possible improvements for this week. One of which is to do with the use of past exam papers. The school could do a great job at improving the exam performance of its students by giving teachers access to past exam papers. This would help teachers tailor practice questions and homework towards the end result of the exam. Another point can be made in relation to the way students feel it is appropriate to second guess a teacher’s commands. For example, one boy in a social science class this week refused to leave the classroom (he said ‘sorry sir’), but the students shouldn’t have the power to decide whether they remain in the room when the teacher has already made a decision. The same child was back talking and disturbing other students in a matter of minutes. The only way to ensure this stops is to make sure teachers follow up on a disciplinary decision when they have made it.  

Amy Meadows: Gentle natured and committed. Working hard to make a difference in our children's lives!

Here is a recent report from Amy: 

Good afternoon all!

I missed one lesson with 5th STD this week due to our assembly with the Round Table guests. The other lessons have been focused on revision where the students are essentially redoing previous work and I walk round to check their progress. Today however, Susan got the students to practice spoken English which went extremely well and was enjoyable to be apart of. The topics of home and school were given to the children, with a note made of how many sentences they managed. Initially they weren't very keen, but later became extremely enthusiastic about speaking in front of the class. They even asked me to speak about both topics and I'm proud to say I got the highest in the sentence tally! 

In 2nd STD English the students have mainly been completing textbook activities. This week has focused on the story 'Black is Beautiful'. I have sat with the students to ensure their understanding and that they are completing the set work. They've also been set some homework this week which appears to have not been completed by a large majority, with some even copying the work in today's lesson. 

With the 1st STD class myself and Subha have been splitting the class into 2, so we both have a group to work with. This tactic has been used to teach the students new words, including family members and -at words. It appears to be a more successful approach with it being a relatively large class helping to involve all students and maintain a good level of focus. In today's lesson Subha has asked me to prepare an -at word activity, I have a game of splat planned which will hopefully go well!!

3rd STD have been focusing on a textbook story about Beno and the butterfly. As apart of their homework they were told to study for a test the next day, which was only to include 2 questions. It became apparent that almost none of the students had completed this request, with the numbers of students told to stand up if they hadn't studied gradually increasing. Despite this, all of the children attempted the questions with a lot of them answering correctly. 

Overall another enjoyable week at Gurukulam! 

All the best

Amy

Loving thanks from all of us at Gurukulam for the enthusiasm brought in by our teaching assistants from UK. Thanks yet again to KPMG.