Walk into any government school, and you’ll often hear some sort of chanting coming from the classrooms. It’s tempting to think it’s the sound of learning, but in most cases, it’s not. It’s actually the sound of (some) students blurting out answers to teachers’ questions, while other students mumble along to cover for their lack … Continue reading One-by-one or all-at-once?
How to improve student attendance
When we did an audit of Jana Uddhar school in February 2015, we found the the average student attendance was 88.4%. (This figure did not include attendance of students in Class 1, which typically has the worst attendance, so the whole school figure was probably significantly lower.) 88.4% attendance sounds quite good. It’s not. It … Continue reading How to improve student attendance
Video – this is what (quite) good teaching looks like
You cannot have a good school if you don’t have good teaching. The whole purpose of our partnership is to improve the quality of teaching in our school. Improving school buildings or installing new equipment is easy, but changing the teaching habits of a lifetime is the real challenge. We’re trying to help teachers make … Continue reading Video – this is what (quite) good teaching looks like
Our #1 teaching problem
The biggest problem many of our teachers face is this; they think their responsibility is simply to teach. It is the students’ responsibility to learn. Their task is to complete the textbook. And if they have done this, then they have done their job, regardless of whether the students have learned anything. The only question … Continue reading Our #1 teaching problem
Teach, Test, Re-teach, Re-test
I recently asked the teachers to do unit tests with their students. We analyse the results not just by student, but by question too. That way we can see which topics/questions the students struggle with, and re-teach them. This ideas is taken from Leverage Leadership – an excellent book for anyone interested in school improvement. … Continue reading Teach, Test, Re-teach, Re-test
Video – Our Community Event
We organised a wonderful community event to celebrate Teacher’s Day and the inauguration of our new school building.