Katrina Pluss

Firstly, School! It has been quite hectic recently, the kids have been studying for there end of year exams, we have been conducting reading assessments within 2 schools and we have helped with a creative writing competition. The reading assessments were good and gave us a lot of contact time with the children so we got to no them more as an individual rather than just a child from a certain class. We had to test their reading, writing, listening and speaking skills. We started by asking them to read books up to the highest level they could achieve and then asked them several questions about themselves and their families. It was nice to get to know the children and they liked coming out of class. They also had to write a paragraph/sentence depending on their age describing their school. Some of the things that the children wrote were really special. Most of the older ones were thanking the school and their “Akka’s and Anna’s” for all the help they had given them, and thanking them for the free education and the food that they received. One of the children from Mars class wrote “I like my school very much because they don’t beat us”. Once we had completed all the reading assessments for 200 children from one school and 200 from the next school we all knew the books off by heart, so did the children!

The next challenge we were given was to help one of the other volunteers with the creative writing competition. Mon, the guy I work with, and I took 4 classes, Venus, Mercury, Sun and Earth. Each class had named a Teddy differently and we had to tell them a story about this teddy. The first class we did was Venus class; they had named the teddy Sweety. They all went crazy when they saw the teddy and listened intently when we told a story about Sweety going to the Zoo. They enjoyed the story very much. Individuals came to the front of the class and told their own stories to the rest of the class. They all did very well. After each child had told us a short story they had to write it up on the competition paper and then colour it in. Once they had completed the piece we collected them in and gave them all a sticker to say well done as they had all done very well. The absolutely loved the stickers and were very proud of them. We did exactly the same with mercury and Earth class but changed the story depending on their capability. Mercury class did very well and listened well, however Earth class did not do so great and managed to talk most of the way through ‘quiet time; they were difficult to control and even the teacher struggled to keep them quiet. With sun class we just took 3 students from the class and got them to write a few sentences about their favorite fruits. The child I was working with, Priyanka, wrote about “srobri’s’ (strawberries). She was very sweet and her spelling was very cute. We were not allowed to help with the spelling but you could read most of the writing if you used phonics which is how the children spell. We had an award ceremony in assembly were the wining 3 children from each class received a certificate and a prize. The founder of the school came along to help present these. Myself and Mon had to choose the winners from each class which was very difficult as all the children had done very well.

The last thing that we are doing in school before we finish is Child Profiles. We are currently doing sun class. We have to speak to each child individually and ask them questions like “what job does your father/mother do?” “Who do you live with?” “Do you have any brothers and sisters?” “What do you do after school?” “What is your favorite lesson?” e.t.c. Some of their answers are really sweet but some of the children don’t understand us as their English is quite poor. We have to write up a little story about them once we have interviewed them which will help them to get sponsored. Apart from being at school a lot of things have been going on since our Mysore trip!

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