Day one of school visits and observations. Game on! Team was up bright and early for a filling and nutritious breakfast at 7am. Unfortunately Andrea, one of our team, will not be joining us today as she is ill. Nothing too serious we hope, but hopefully a full days rest will put her right. After quite a wrestle with Delhi traffic we finally managed to get to our fist school. As it turns out lanes are just a suggestion on the Indian roads and you live by your ability to use your horn. It is definitely the quick and the dead!
The schools are difficult to describe. Definitely nothing like what I am used to. The buildings are just randomly placed in residential areas. Some of them look more like building sites at first, but the people in them are amazing. The Head Teachers and their staff are so welcoming of us and it is clear that they have been anticipating our arrival. I observed 4 different teachers in four different lessons today. The kids in all the lessons were fantastic. There are no behavioural issues here at all and on the whole it seems the students are keen and ready to learn. It was nice to see the teachers implementing the training that they have received from previous visits into their lessons.
At the end of the day during the feedback part of our seminar it was really encouraging to sit with the teachers I had observed that day and offer feedback. They were very receptive and desperate to hear what mark I had given them for each lesson. I look forward to seeing them improve over the next few days in the lead up to their assessment.
The whole Impact team had a really positive day and feel much more comfortable in our roles as assessors having got our first day under our belt. It has been a long hot one and I definitely got my sweat on today! We were rewarded with yet another awesome dinner and now we are chilling out so we will be refreshed and good to go for tomorrow. Guts continue to hold up well so fingers crossed that continues!
