Angakhola

My first visit to a school after the strikes and elections was to Shree Amrit Higher Secondary School in Angakhola (Twinned with Kings Lynn Academy, Norfolk). Nepalese schools work slightly differently to UK schools, as far as I can see, and when they say higher secondary it means that all years are taught up to Higher Secondary, so there is a wide range in ages - anything from 4-17 all in one school.

I was certainly feeling nervous about my first visit to a school since the others left but really was looking forward to getting down to work. The jeep journey took us along the road to Pokhara for 45 minutes or so before turning off and driving another 45 minutes or so along a rough track. We were heading along the bottom of a valley with farm land separated into small strips and a small river just down below us.

The welcome I received was once again amazing, though this time my hands filled up with petals from the flowers presented to me even quicker as it was just Saran and I. The children lined the path up to the school and I lost count of the number of times I was 'Namaste'd', tikka'd and presented with flower garlands. This was followed by a dance programme where I was hauled up to dance with a few though by now I have lost all sense of embarrassment and just go for it!! It was really very special with the drums beating constantly and being showed by flower petals from the balcony above us. After a while though it got rather hot dancing in the sun so we retreated to the staff room and the children returned to their lessons. In the afternoon I did my fact gathering and was shown round the school.

Another truly amazing welcome followed by some not so amazing dancing from me!

There are a number of very good classrooms but also some that are pretty poor. As always seems to be the case the best classrooms are reserved for the older children. I tried to encourage them that they should use the best classrooms and library wherever possible as there seems to be times when these are empty (the children in the eldest two years do not study full time). They assured me that they do use the classroom for lessons though I did not see this during my visit.

The main school building.

 There has been a lot of work done in levelling out playing areas for volleyball and other games and this seems to be a really good use of funds as the school sits up on a ridge and before there was apparently no flat areas at all on which they could play.
                                                                                  
The main building of the school is quite old and their biggest concern. It is constructed of clay and mud with wooden beams supporting. It looks in fairly good condition but they say that structually it is quite weak. The building that appeared poorest to me was opposite the main building and was constructed by brick but the classrooms were dark and the interior walls were not built up to the ceiling so you could clearly hear what was going on in the other classrooms. The one classroom, class 6, in particular was very dark and very small for the number of pupils crammed into it. 

Some of the levelling work that has been undertaken - this seems to have been a wise investment.

Above - two of the not so good classrooms - the lower one makes it look much lighter than it actually was.

Above: The newest and probably the best classroom.

Nursery finishes early so the boy has to wait for his brother/sister to walk home

 

The following day I finally got to do some teaching. First of all I started with Year 4 and we made mini dictionaries containing typically Nepali items with a picture of each item and the English and Nepali word written underneath. I was surprised by the length of time it took them and we actually had to extend the lesson into the next period to get them finished. The children worked hard though and enjoyed using the colouring pencils I provided and produced some nice work. They have a tendency to keep rubbing things out, often when there is nothing wrong with what they have done and this normally makes it look messier! I had to try and persuade them against doing this! I was pleased with what they did though and hope the pupils at Kings Lynn Academy will like them.

After this I taught measurement to class 5 and got them measuring each other and looking to see if their is a relationship between height and arm span (they should measure the same). It is clear the children do not do this sort of activity very often as it took them some time to get the hang of it but after a short while they were quite enthusiastic with it and were able to measure fairly accurately using the tape measures I provided.

I taught Class 8 next and we learnt about prepositions and I got the children out of their seats and making up actions to go along with the sentence I asked them to say. I got them working in groups and after they presented their actions and sentences to the class. They were rather shy to begin with but I hope that more work such as this will help build their confidence to speak in the classroom.

After lunch I took Class 3 and having seen them chanting the names of some fruits and vegetables the previous day I built on this with a few activities before they picked a fruit to draw and label in English and Nepali and I later stuck these up in the classroom. Nepali classrooms have a tendency to be utterly bare and this is a big thing I want to try and address. Children's work should be displayed in order to give it a sense of purpose and make them take pride in their work. It will also help brighten up the depressingly drab classrooms!

Class 3 making fruit / vegetable pictures which I put up on display.

The final period I worked with Year 9 and did some more twinning letters. There has, according to them been no twinned letters sent since the last time Johnny was here so hopefully we can get this started again. I was really pleased with their efforts and they produced some good letters, all written in English.

In the evening I stayed at the School chairman's home and it was a quiet evening, as had been the case the previous night. It was a nice evening though and I played with the rugby ball with the chairman's daughter and we played a game of pick up sticks which I had brought along (a really fun game requiring a lot of concentration and a steady hand). The food was really good and as usual loads of it. I probably had the freshest chicken I have ever eaten (I saw the poor thing pecking in the yard a couple of hours earlier!).

Playing pick up sticks!!

Couldn't leave this picture out!!

In the morning I packed up my things and we got a local jeep which took us to our next school visit at Jheksang. As a parting gift I was given what looked like an enormous orange picked off their tree (this actually turned out to be a grapefruit and was really delicious). It was a really good first visit, albeit a rather short one, and I look forward to returning here for a longer stay.