Wednesday in India

Another busy day in India, but at least the sun has been shining. I'm going to miss this lovely weather! The day was spent in school. I spent the morning with senior managers talking about our timetable at Moor Hall, and how we deliver lessons. The Head Teacher is AB Situ or AB Sir. He is quite a character and amongst other things owns a farm and wants to breed Bantom hens. The morning was very intense but really interesting. There is a huge contrast between the way we teach and the way the schools in Chandigarh teach. Sir was particularly interested in our differentiation and the way we taught subjects. In India the children have literacy, maths, Hindi, Science and P.E. every day. They have art twice per week along with ICT. The children go to school every other Saturday for half a day. School starts at 8.00 and they go home at 2.00. buses take the children home - almost to their door. If their parents work there is usually an adult - grand mother - at home when they get there. The children often have after school activities like sports or music lessons. They must pay extra for this. There is maths homeowork for them every day and other subjects take it in turns so there isn't an overload. All the classes have more than 30 chldren in them. the Y1 class had 43 and the Y2 class had 37. There is no classroom assistant. I saw some lovely lessons and the Y2 children acted out a play about Mahatma Gandhi. I have added a photograph of the young man who played that part. Mrs. Collins and Y5 so lovely to get your comments. Here are the answers to the questions you asked... 1. No I haven't been in a tuk tuk yet, ... not sure I will ... if you joined the traffic here you'd understand! 2. We are staying in a hotel quite close to all our schools. The beds are very comfortable. 3. I'm not sure how many children are in class 5 but will have a better idea tomorrow when I go and see them, and I promise to take a photograph of them for you all. The children are taught in English, and this can be aproblem for some children whose parents don't speak English at home. 4. Mr. Nek Chand did live amongst his recycled garden. the ceiling of his home is made from a pattern of stones. You can see this in the photograph I posted yesterday.

5. They have a teacher of Hindi who comes into school every day. I watched a Y1 class playing a game to support their phonics activities. 6. I am very sorry to say that I haven't met a Bollywood star. However one of the schools has had Kangana Ranaut as a student along with Kapil Dev who used to play cricket. For those who are interested, I think we may visit the Chandigarh cricket ground on Friday before we go to the airport. 6. The Golden Temple was fantastic. We did go inside, thakfully it was arranged for us to go straight in and not queue up . We were taken inside and up the stairs to where the oldest book the Guru Granth Sahib is kept. This is a very spiritual book and we were able to see it. 7. Would I go back to India? Without a doubt! Mrs. Collins you would love it, I'm not sure I'm up to taking 30 children however, it took a great deal of time and effort sorting myself, Miss Kaur and Miss Wood out this time!! It's our last full day tomorrow. I'll add my final blog tomorrow before I arrive home safely on Saturday. Finally Y5 you will be pleased to hear that I have told everyone I meet to vote for your song. When is the closing date?